


Long Ass Ride: the Board Game

by VereorInHell



Category: NCT (Band), SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Band Fic, Best Friends, Board Games, Elementals, Friendship/Love, Idols, M/M, Not mermaid but siren, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Seer, Siren, Telepath, Werewolf, dryad, incubus, vampire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29488692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VereorInHell/pseuds/VereorInHell
Summary: NCT 127 is given a mysterious board game. Too old to even be vintage and not in the best of shape. But the name is funny and they decide to play. They should have read the instructions first.Or: A board game AU where the members are turned into a bunch of different creatures and have to complete mission after mission to save a fantasy kingdom and, most importantly, come back home.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Nakamoto Yuta, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Lee Taeyong/Nakamoto Yuta, Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 14
Kudos: 76





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> The Board game you didn't know you were waiting for (and TBH neither did I).

Moments like these are magic.

Precious for their rare nature, all the more treasured when they arrive. Even the most adrenaline-junkie of contemporary idols will not deny loving an off moment, a lull before life goes back to its hectic self, a few days of calm.

A break, to make it simple.

Such is the circumstance NCT127 find themselves into.

After too many days of close to no sleep, hurried meals, hysterically checked rehearsal and a few mental breakdowns, the training is over, the choreographies have been learned and the songs recorded. The MV of the first song of their new album has been released twelve hours ago, and, to quote the wise words of Mark Lee, they ‘deserve a fucking fuckity fucked break, hashtag break, my life sucks sometimes, man’.

No one has really understood the reason for the last part of the comment, choosing rather to focus on the first portion – the one all of them could agree on.

They truly, really deserve a fucking break.

Taeyong lets himself flop down on the couch, squeezing his way in the empty spot left between Doyoung and the couch arm. It’s more a freefall than a coordinated, controlled movement, but, whatever.

Taeyong bounces slightly, the movement of the cushion jostling Doyoung as well, albeit less. The younger whines, eyes still closed and arm slumped to cover his eyes. Taeyong absent-mindedly reaches out, to pet Doyoung’s hair.

The fact that Doyoung allows, even softly hums in contentment is a further proof of just how tired the boys are.

“We should eat” Jungwoo opines, his usually soft voice turned raspy like every time after he’s been singing for too long.

“That’s the best idea you’ve ever had” Mark muses quietly, smiling with his eyes closed and a beatific expression on his face.

“I’m too tired to cook” Doyoung mutters, hiding his face in the crook of Taeyong’s neck.

Taeyong extends his arm open, letting the younger snuggle closer into his side, and offering more space for Doyoung’s head to rest in the nook of his shoulder. It’s always sweet and endearing, watching the two of them cuddle like this, like cats, like kids. Especially if you consider that Doyoung is taller than the boy he cuddles into, and not by a little.

Taeyong strokes the back of Doyoung’s head, playing with the fine, black hair just as absent-mindedly as before. He looks exhausted, and he pulls his lips close and hums quietly.

“Me too. Let’s just order. I can pay”

“Ooooh” Johnny coos after that, beaming in a way that lights up his face but does not hide the tired strain in the corner of his eyes.

Taeil and Haechan giggle at the same time, in a way it looks eerily rehearsed and it’s eerie because it’s not. They are currently squeezed together in the loveseat, not so much as cuddling but rather holding onto one another in order not to tumble down from it, their heads slotted one under the other and eyes drifting shut.

“If it gets me food faster, I can pay” Taeil announces, mumbling with his face hidden in Haechan’s hair.

Taeyong snorts: “Let it not said I object against you paying for me. Johnny, can you write down our orders?”

Johnny swiftly pulls his phone out from his pants pocket and types at it.

“Right back at ya, Taeyongie. What do we want?”

Taeil snorts: “I like how fast you’ve changed your mind, Taeyong-ah” he comments, sending a sarcastic, little smile Taeyong’s way.

Their leader grins Cheshire-cat like, and lifts two fingers in a peace sign.

Jaehyun groans from where he’s collapsed on the couch end opposite to the one Taeyong and Doyoung are occupying, raises an arm over his head and swings it a couple of times. The movement wakes Mark, jostling him from where he’s fallen asleep with his head all but in Jaehyun’s lap.

“I want samgyeopsal. A lot of samgyeopsal”

“Uh, and Bulgogi too, we should get bulgogi too” Yuta adds, with heavily lidden eyes and a soft voice that isn’t too far from being a moan.

“Man, I didn’t know you had such strong feelings for grilled beef” Mark candidly comments. The members laugh, a tired sound that spread in the room pleasantly all the same.

“Let’s get bossam. Bossam and samgyeopsal”

“And bulgogi”

“Yes Yuta, we will get your bulgogi, we got it” Johnny reassures him with a teasing smile, fingers typing fast in his phone as he places the order.

“Mmm” Doyoung moans, stirring to the side. He unfolds his long legs from under his butt and stretches them out on the floor, the movement sending him with his back entirely pressed against Taeyong’s front, but the older doesn’t protest, letting him readjust into a comfortable position.

“Don’t forget a lot of bibimbap. Never forget bibimbap” he mutters, resting the back of his head in the crook of Taeyong’s neck.

He sighs softly, and it’s all the more endearing because he hasn’t opened his eyes once yet.

“Poor Doyoungie, are you that tired?” Taeil asks, teasing.

“Yes” Doyoung replies, smiling honestly and unabashed.

Taeyong giggles at that, caresses Doyoung’s hair back from where it’s fallen on the younger’s forehead.

“Johnny, get us kimchi, too. I know we always end up needing it”

“Already written, boss”

“Good. And hoeddeok, too”

Haechan makes a protesting sound: “Hyung, you’re literally the only ones who likes them!”

“Yah, Haechan-ah, they are good and we deserve dessert too” he argues.

Jaheyun snorts and raises his hands over his head again, making a sort of shaking gesture with his shoulders.

“You know what I deserve!” he sing-songs.

“Hyunnie, go back to sleep” Doyoung orders, extending a leg and using it to push at Jaehyun. His foot collides with Mark’s belly before he can reach Jaehyun though, and Mark is too tired to move out of his way.

“Ooof” is the sound Mark makes, as the foot ends up slowly but inexorably pressed into his chest. He grabs at Doyoung’s ankle and holds it still. Realizing his ankle is now trapped, Doyoung opens his eyes, peeking from under his lashes, and smiles apologetically at Mark when he realizes he’s punished the wrong person.

“Still, let’s get something sweet as well. Hoeddeok are fine, but we should get something more” Jungwoo argues, from where he’s slouched into the other smaller couch with Yuta.

“Aren’t you a smart one, Jungwoo” Yuta murmurs, turning on his side and sliding his legs in Jungwoo’s lap. Jungwoo snorts but doesn’t move them away, caressing instead the fabric of Yuta’s pants.

“Hyung, you’ll be asleep before the food arrives”

“Mmm. Wake me up for it”

Jaehyun giggles: “Or else?” he asks.

That gets a reaction out of Yuta – the Japanese boy frowns, lifts himself on an elbow and glares at Jaehyun.

“My beloved younger brother, you do not want to find out” he threatens, then smiles one of his beautifully dazzling smiles, and lets himself collapse again into the couch.

“Don’t try to steal Yuta’s food, Jaehyun. He barks, but he bites too” Johnny advises, lifting an eyebrow and looking at Jaehyun with a pointed expression, as if to say, you have been warned.

“Okay, so, anything else?” he asks the room.

“Get us a cake or something” Haechan mumbles, his face squashed against the cushion of the loveseat.

Johnny nods and types at his phone.

“Okay, done. I’m sending the order. Anything else?” 

Taeil silently pats his leg and extracts his wallet, throwing it to Johnny. Johnny slips the credit card out and punches the numbers in the app for the food, effectively placing their order.

“Oookay, it says here we’ll get our food in a bit less than thirty minutes”

Taeyong claps his hands, startling Doyoung into definite consciousness. He ignores the grumbling younger and the curses Doyoung is hissing his way, and pushes him up into a sitting position, slipping out from behind him and standing up.

“That’s enough time to shower and get out of these clothes. Come on, everyone, I can still see plenty of makeup on most of your faces. Up! Go wash yourselves” he commands, clapping again.

The members protest and grumble, but, after Taeyong disappears in his room for a well-deserved shower in the privacy of his bathroom, they all mimic him, bee-lining in direction of a shower and working on removing the leftover of makeup they still have on.

“This is the thing I hate the most about promoting” Yuta comments, rubbing a cotton pad over the scorpion sign on his cheek: “every time having to wear makeup and then take it off, only to have it put on again the day after”

“Well, that’s makeup for you” Jaehyun replies shrugging: “and anyway, you’re the one insisting for the extra details” he adds teasingly, fingers pointing at the other’s cheek.

Yuta scoffs: “I like my scorpion symbol. It makes me look hot” he argues.

Jaehyun makes an unimpressed sound: “Whatever you say, hyung”

“I agree, by the way” Doyoung declares, popping up from nowhere. His skin is still flushed pink and he’s still in the process of toweling his hair. He must have just come out the shower.

They reconvene in the living room shortly before the food arrives, each member taking place either at the dining table or kneeling around the coffee table between the couches and loveseats. Johnny appears in the door way, carrying several paper bags with steamy containers full of food, Taeyong trailing after him, carrying some himself as well.

They splay the food out on the dining table, decide to arrange the food all there and then relocate to whatever seat they pick. Taeyong calls dibs on one of the chair at the dining table and inadvertently starts a war for dibs on seats.

“Let’s go in order of age” Doyoung suggests.

“Hyung, not fair!” Haechan protests.

“Guys, grabs some pillows and sit here” Taeyong suggests, depositing a pile of plates on the table after retrieving them from the kitchen. Mark goes to fetch them chopsticks and Yuta brings back glasses.

“We should have gotten something to drink, maybe” Doyoung mumbles to himself. He hands out to each member a dish and a set of chopsticks, Taeyong doing the same with glasses. 

“We have water and… water and… pear soda? And some other sodas” Taeil informs them, peeking into the fridge.

Him and Johnny bring back some bottles and splay them on the table. They take a seat, Johnny on the last empty chair at the table (he doesn’t like eating sitting on the floor, claims he’s too tall), while Taeil sits crossed-legged on a pillow between Haechan and Yuta.

The food is good, and they are starving, too tired to enjoy it, and too famished to notice if something hasn’t been cooked the traditional way. Beside Doyoung. He notices, and after some silent munching deep in thoughts, turns to Taeyong to asks his opinion.

Taeyong munches his own bite and swallows, takes another bite, munches some more, then nods, agreeing with Doyoung.

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Not that it matters now”

Doyoung snorts, shaking his head no and helping himself with a good portion of kimchi. Oh no, sir, it really does not matter – give them barely cooked meat and they would probably eat it with no qualms, at this point. Especially some of them, he thinks, eyeing silently Jaehyun’s and Yuta’s way.

“Hey, hey, hey, none of the judgmental staring please” Jungwoo reprimands him, pointing the back of one of his chopsticks at Doyoung.

“I wasn’t judging” Doyoung lies smoothly, bending closer to his plate to scoop up the last of his meat.

“You so were” Taeyong laughs, mouth still half full with the food he hasn’t swallowed yet.

He pours soup in a bowl for himself and another for Doyoung, who accepts it with a grateful nod. Haechan asks for some, too, and Taeyong ends up serving samgaetang for everyone.

“Mmm, what a sexy maid you’d make, hyung!” Yuta teases him, grinning. The members laugh and Taeyong can’t help the blush coloring his cheeks.

“Why do you always have to be such an idiot” he mutters in response, and the members laugh more.

“Yah, plus, the word you’ve used is really funny” Taeil adds, struggling to speak, laugh and not choke himself on the bite he’s still chewing.

Yuta frowns in confusion: “What do you mean?”

“The word you’ve used, maid, instead of waitress” Doyoung replies, being it easier for him than Taeil to speak: “it’s correct, it’s not wrong. It’s just what you’d hear in a drama set in Goryeo times” he explains.

“I think we heard it in that movie we watched together last time, remember hyung?” Mark pipes up, looking at Yuta while trying not to spill his soup from the bowl he’s drinking.

“Mark-ah, watch out, you’ll spill that soup” Taeyong scolds him, the parent-mode automatically activated at the sight.

“Sorry hyung” Mark replies, just as automatically, not even realizing what he’s apologizing for. He turns back to face frontwards and, in fact, spills a bit of soup while moving: “Oh, damn”

Without missing a beat, Haechan passes him napkins, at the same time as Doyoung snorts fondly.

“Guysh” Johnny starts, half-covering his mouth with the back of his hand. He’s holding his chopsticks with one hand and his phone with the other: “Manager-hyung shays we should do a Vlive”

He stops, swallows his mouthful of food and shows them the phone: “Looks like we’ve received a tons of presents from fans, and because we don’t have anything planned for the next couple of days, they say we could do a Vlive and open the presents on cam”

Haechan snorts: “So much for peace and quiet”

“Yah” Jungwoo nods in agreement: “let it not be said NCT spend two days resting, oh no, it would be tragic” he sarcastically says, with his best aegyo voice.

“How should we unpack presents, if the staff always open them first to check them?” Jaehyun points out: “don’t tell me they’d rewrap them again for us to un-wrap a second time”

“Most definitely” Taeyong distractedly answers, reaching out with a finger to Johnny’s phone and scrolling quickly to read the message.

“I mean, we can do this” he says, looking around ta the rest of the members: “How long would it take? An hour? We can do that”

Doyoung hums, thinking: “Plus one other for the makeup. But, I mean. Sure, we could do it, I guess”

Jaehyun and Johnny protests that they planned on hitting the gym, then argue that they can do the Vlive either after or before they do so, and finally agree. Jungwoo and Yuta shake their shoulders in the most careless way, and Haechan and Taeil nod quietly.

Mark giggles, attracting all the attention from the table.

“I just hope they censor the worst, though. Like, I know they wouldn’t let us unpack lingerie or shit like that on camera, but. Some presents are really cringy, sometimes”

A chorus of giggle and strained, embarrassed sounds follows.

“Okay, John, tell Manager-hyung we’re in” Taeyong decides, and after that it’s final, Johnny humming quietly and typing single-handedly as he goes on eating.

-

“Okay cuuuut!”

“Stop being so loud, Haechan-ah” Johnny chides fondly.

“Yeah, stop being so loud, Haechan!” Doyoung echoes more pointedly.

“Yo, it doesn’t even make sense, you can’t say ‘okay cut’ when we have literally just started a Vlive” Mark points out, waving his hands in front of his face.

“Oh, shut up, Canada, really”

The members laugh at the almost aloof expression Haechan dismisses Mark with, that clashes drastically with the way his cheeks are coloring up.

“Okay, everyone!” Taeyong exclaims, clapping loudly his hands and attracting attention. He looks straight into the camera and explains what they are doing, a Vlive recording of the members opening presents and letters received from their fans.

The members are sitting at a semi-circularly shaped table, strategically placed so that each of them can easily be seen from the camera. In front of each of them there are several wrapped boxes and letters, some with colored envelopes, some plain white.

“Yes, as you can see” Haechan takes after Taeyong: “in front of each of us there are presents from you, our beloved Ncitizens, and we are now going to unwrap them all. Each of us will pick one between gift or letter, and unwrap it and show it, or open it, and read it”

“Yes! And at the end of the session we will decide which gift we found was the best and which letter has touched us the most” Jaehyun adds.

“Also please note that we couldn’t include every single one of the presents that you sent us, because they are that many” Johnny steps in, smiling charmingly to the camera: “and if we tried to open them all on camera, we would probably hit the record of the longest Vlive session, ever”

A mumbled voice follows, the camera focusing on Johnny’s intent expression as he listens. The members laugh, and Doyoung repeats aloud what someone from the staff has just pointed out.

“Yes, and, the staff has screened the gifts and removed the presents that were not suitable for TV. That’s your own fault though!” He points a scolding finger at the camera: “what have you sent us, that had to be censored, uh?”

The members laugh.

The Vlive session is quiet, neither particularly bad nor good, and they have their usual share of fun, albeit sometimes a bit forced. Mark proves true to his true self by almost making another sexual joke and bursting out into his usual, hysterical laughter, but Johnny and Jaehyun rush to cover it up and move the topic.

They know it’s a moot point and Mark’s words will be all over the internet in less than twelve hours, but, whatever.

At the end of the scheduled hour, there’s a layer of wrapping paper covering the floor about fifty centimeters high, so much that their legs disappear from sight. The table is covered with stuffed animals, food, clothing articles and drawings or pictures. They decide which present they found best and which letter has touched them the most, putting up the usual amount of fake-arguments (which, to be honest, in Taeyong and Doyoung’s case isn’t completely made up, but, whatever), and then they wrap it up.

Right before they say hello to their audience and close it, though, Jaehyun grins to Johnny and then straight to the camera, the way his elders have learned not to trust because it means whatever he’s about to do will not be filed under the ‘things responsible Jaehyun would do’ category.

“You know what, I think I am curious now, I think we should open the censored gifts after we close the Vlive” he opines, smiling devilishly.

Haechan laughs, thinking it’s a joke.

“Well, if you want” Doyoung says, before he can help it.

“Okay!” Taeyong exclaims, glaring their way and then pointedly ignoring both of them: “everyone, this is us leaving! Thank you again for watching and see you soon! Ncitizens, we love you!”

Cue in the usual smiles, chorus of hellos, I love yous, Bye Ncitizens.

As soon as the staff informs them the camera is off, Taeyong cuffs Doyoung on the back of his head.

“What the fuck! Why did you say that on camera!”

“Hey! It was Jaehyun who said it first!” Doyoung protests.

“I don’t care, you could have defused instead of giving him more attention”

“Chill, Taeyongie” Johnny steps in, sneaking an arm along Taeyong’s shoulders.

He looks pointedly over at Jaehyun and smiles sweetly at the younger boy: “But I think we all agree Jaehyun pays for food tonight”

Jaehyun tries protesting but it’s drowned in the chorus of hurras, and thank you Jaehyuns.

“Okay guys, let’s fuck off. Dinner together later?” Taeil asks, clapping his hands and rubbing them together.

They agree and part ways, Johnny and Jaehyun hitting the gym, Mark and Haechan getting an Uber to join the Dreamies somewhere. Yuta, Taeil and Jungwoo leave together with some obscure reasons that neither Doyoung nor Taeyong further investigate.

That’s how NCT leader and his best friend finds themselves alone, sprawled on Taeyong’s bed, heads hanging off the bed and feet up on the wall. Despite the uncomfortable position, Taeyong is already close to doze off, and Doyoung feels equally so tired he might fall asleep anytime soon.

He rearranges himself properly on the bed and drags Taeyong along, forcing him to lie down in a way he won’t crack his skull open if he falls on the floor. Taeyong goes along with it but whines all the while, because how could he not.

Once again settled, they snuggle close to each other, Doyoung humming quietly under his breath one of the new songs and Taeyong helping him with the lyrics he forgets, until they fall asleep, curled like cats.

-

Dinner is a loud affair, albeit not much more than usual. The members are tired but happy, the resting day proving to be what they needed. Mark and Haechan talked the most, retelling the others about something stupid and equally funny that happened when they were with their younger members.

Once the food is over, they relocate to the living room, piling up on the couches and loveseats. Johnny deposits a couple of bottles of gin, tequila and vodka on the coffee table, and Jaehyun places about fifteen tumblers, somehow miraculously not dropping even one before he makes it to the table.

Haechan, Mark and Taeil pile up the rest of the presents, the censored ones, some wrapped in terribly cringy wrapping papers, or in stuff that was presumed to look sexy.

“Who the fuck wraps a present in black lace thongs?!” Haechan asks, bewildered and laughing, shaking a small wrapped package in the air.

“My kind of type!” Yuta replies with a sly grin, and snatches the gift from Haechan’s hands.

“Uh, I want that one, the one all in black” Johnny exclaims, pointing at a package.

Taeil hands it over and reads the small label on a very bright pink one: “This is for Taeyong!”

“Oh god” Taeyong mumbles and accepts the package.

“I hope it’s a bra, again” Doyoung teases him, grinning madly.

“Shut up”

“Doyoung, here, this is for you” Taeil calls him, handing him a present wrapped in orange and green stripes.

“I hope it’s a carrot” Taeyong comments.

“Why would it be a carrot? Don’t you see it’s a rectangle?” Doyoung objects, already unwrapping the present.

“Gaw! Oh my god!” Yuta exclaims, laughing madly with his head tilted back. The black lacey thongs his present came wrapped in lie in his lap, all thorn apart, and he’s clutching a small piece of paper in one of his hand.

“What’s that?” Johnny asks, curious.

“It’s an onlyfans address” Yuta replies, drying the tears from the corner of his eye.

“Is she hot?” Jaehyun asks, curious, trying to read the slip of paper and promptly blushing right after.

“…Oh”

“Yeah, Jaehyunnie, that’s the reason why I was laughing”

“Wait, what is it?” Doyoung asks, trying to bend closer to Yuta and read.

Jaehyun laughs: “It’s a boy” he explains to the rest of the team: “the thongs got me hoping!”

“Whatever, I think I’ll check him out anyway. Maybe he’s cute” Yuta shrugs, placing the slip of paper on the coffee table.

“Suddenly I don’t feel so sure about opening mine” Taeyong grimaces.

“I can open it for you, hyung” Jungwoo offers, snatching the present and not wasting a second before unwrapping it.

“…Oh” is all he says, once he’s completely unwrapped it: “oh shit”

“What, what is it?” Taeyong asks, curious, half the team watching as he picks the small bundle of fabric from Jungwoo’s hands, and realizes it’s a pouch.

Frowning in confusion, he turns around, and proceeds to blush furiously at the ‘agent provocateur’ embroidered over the front. He curses under his breath, face reddening by the second, and Doyoung bursts out laughing even before Taeyong is done raising the article of clothing for the rest of the team to see.

In the stunned silence that follows, Taeyong pulls his lips together in a skeptical expression.

“Well” he comments quietly: “there is no ways I am wearing this”

The members laugh, the booming mixing with the hysterical sounds of Mark’s and Taeyong’s, as their leader shows them all the skimpy panties he’s being gifted.

“Shit, hyung, do you have any idea how much those must be worthy?” Doyoung asks, shaking his head incredulous and still giggling.

“Oh, don’t worry, you can have them if you want” Taeyong reassures him sarcastically.

Doyoung makes a loud pfff sound and points out they’re so tiny there is no way they’d fit anyone but Taeyong.

“Hey, at least it’s shit of good quality” Mark tries for the bright sight, but it’s ruined by another fit of hysterical giggles that escapes him before he’s finished speaking.

The rest of the presents are less weird, and more cringy, with a lot, really a lot of love declarations, and some disturbing attempts at poetry – Doyoung in particular is giving everyone the time of their lives the way he’s destroying every single poem as if he was the meanest literary critic.

“Look at this! She even spelled ‘nude’ wrong! How can you spell ‘nude’ wrong!” he exclaims, looking almost frustrated with incredulity: “seriously, listen: ‘I fall asleep and dream it’s not the blanket choking me but your naked arms, my precious Jaehyun, I would love to be nude in your bed’. How can you write shit like that and not check if you’ve made a spelling mistake! And let’s not mention the choking with a blanket”

“You’re so mean” Haechan tries to say – try being the key word, because he’s almost sobbing so hard he’s laughing. He holds his tummy and tries to wipe at his tears, sighing softly.

“And, another here! No, this one you guys have to guess. Listen: ‘the beauty of a rose is such because it does not wither, and so do you, never wither my love, the rose of your scars’. This is disturbing! Come on!” Doyoung exclaims, triggering another fit of laughter as he slaps the back on his hand against the poor piece of paper in yet another display of utter disbelief at the bad poetry.

“Oh my god” Taeyong whines, red in the face.

“Yah, Taeyong hyung, I think it’s you!” Yuta teases him loudly, Jungwoo immediately repeating what he remembers of those few lines in his child-like aegyo voice.

“What the fuck” he says right after, switching to his normal tone: “what does that even mean. Roses aren’t eternal”

“The rose of your scar? What does that mean?” Taeil asks, curious: “Like, do you have that many scars that they are the petals of a rose? Or how many scars do you have that look like a rose?”

“Just the fucking one” Taeyong answers, tearing the paper out of Doyoung’s hands and balling it up.

“Ohhh, guys, check it out! It wasn’t a carrot, alright, Doyoung hyung!” Haechan squeals in delight, pushing a rectangular box right into Doyoung’s face – the present that came wrapped in orange and green striped paper.

Doyoung frowns at Haechan in confusion and quickly gets rid of the rest of the paper… and then blushes madly, redder than even Taeyong, while the rest of the team start laughing so hard they’re basically crying, Mark falls on the floor and Taeyong is almost convulsing.

Doyoung drops the box on the floor like he’s been burnt, but Jaehyun picks it up, still laughing, and actually opens the box, revealing what they knew already was inside, since there was a very bright colored, very precisely drawn picture on its cover.

It’s a carrot-shaped, orange dildo, topped by a triplet of cute, green, plastic carrot leaves.

Taeyong howls laughing, pointing at it and at Doyoung’s mortified face. Jaehyun actually dangles the dildo in front of Doyoung’s face, and Doyoung slaps it away with the back of his hand, an expression so horrified it triggers a new fit of hysterical laughter from basically everyone.

“Doyoung, are you going to use that?” Johnny asks, and he looks like he wants to try and say more but he has to stop, laughing so hard he bends backward.

The carrot-shaped dildo falls on the floor and Doyoung hastily covers it with the back of the box, scoping it back inside and closing the lid with all his strength.

“… We are never, ever opening this box again” he orders, glaring at everyone who dares to make eye contact and still blushing furiously.

“Shit, I think that was even better than the panties for Taeyong” Taeil opines, hiccupping.

Doyoung nods vehemently, no longer brave enough to make eye comment with his members any longer, and suggest them (begs, really) that they move on to another package.

Trying to sober up, Mark reaches for a big, rectangular box, this one thin and big, which he presumes won’t contain sex toys or lingerie sets, if only because it’s big enough it could contain several sets, one for all of them.

And Mark really doesn’t want to think about people picking underwear or sex toys for him to use, thank you very much.

He tears the wrapping paper and realize…

“Hey guys, check this out, this isn’t too bad!” he exclaims, twisting to show the rest of the team the present.

“What’s that?”

“What…?”

“Hey, is it a board game?”

“A board game?”

“Who does even still use board games, man?” Haechan asks, squinting in confusion.

“Yeah, it’s a board game” Mark confirms, finishing unwrapping it.

“And…. Oh” he stops as he notices the name and then promptly bursts out laughing.

Johnny catches the name and laughs as well: “I guess we know why they sent it to us!”

It's a board game, and judging from the box is not one that any of them has ever seen. It looks vintage and pretty, the box finely painted and decorated.

“Why would someone send us a fantasy board game… oh. Really? That’s the name?” Jaehyun laughs: “long-ash-ride?”

“What does that even mean?” Haechan asks in confusion, looking at the Foreign Swagger Team.

“Shouldn’t that be long ass ride?” Taeyong asks Mark: “Isn’t that one the thing you always say?”

“It is. But I guess whoever sent this saw the name and thought it sounded similar”

“It doesn’t even mean anything in English” Johnny points out, laughing at the absurdity of the name.

“How can ash be long or short?” Jaehyun asks, nodding.

“Hey, it says here that it’s great for team building and solving any issue between team members” Jungwoo reads aloud, smiling happily: “Let’s play!”

“What? Why, how do you even play?”

“There must be instructions inside” Doyoung reasons: “Let’s check the reviews it has on google”

“Who cares about reviews, even if it’s a boring game, let’s just play” Jungwoo insists.

“Uh, actually, I don’t find it” Jaehyun frowns, scrolling through his phone.

“Yeah, me neither” Johnny agrees, squinting at his phone.

“Maybe it’s really old” Taeyong suggests.

“Or maybe it sucked so much they never sold enough copies of it” Doyoung adds.

“Oh, come on” Taeil sides with Jungwoo: “who cares! After the dildo, I don’t really want to see what else we could find in the pile of gifts left”

Doyoung hurries to agree with that one.

“Here is the card. It says it’s for all of us, they even listed all the names” Yuta says, digging through the wrapping papers discarded on the floor and picking up a piece of the one that covered the board game.

“Mark, open it” Taeyong suggests, and Mark does. He places the lid to the side and the first thing they see is a folded, wooden looking board and a thin, small booklet.

“Those must be the instructions” Johnny points out, extending his index finger at them.

“I say Mark reads them out, it would be appropriate, for a game called ‘long ass ride’” Taeil jokes.

“It’s long ash ride” Mark corrects him, but picks up the booklet nonetheless. 

“Who cares, man, just read them” Taeyong insists.

“And if it’s too boring we’ll do something else” Doyoung suggests.

“Why Doyoung, do you want to go try out your new toy?” Taeyong can’t help to tease him.

The team laughs, Doyoung blushing furiously and pinning Taeyong to the floor and proceeding to smother him with a pillow. Taeyong fights back, and shortly after Jaehyun has to intervene and tries to divide them.

“Guys, guys, come on!” Johnny calls them.

“Let’s try this long ass ride!” Jungwoo screams.

“Dude, no, that sounds really, really bad” Mark points out.

“…Why?” Jungwoo asks, blinking owlishly.

“Just read the instructions, Mark” Johnny suggests, levelling Mark with a pointed look.

“Okay, team, here we go” Mark says, and opens the booklet.


	2. Ready, set, go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They read the instructions and start to play. What could go wrong? It's just a game.

“Yo, quiet now! Let me read, guys!”

The raucous sound of male laughter dims down, until it’s little more than shallow background noise. Mark clears his throat and starts to read aloud the instruction of the board game.

“Okay, so, instructions. Here it says that the game is a fantasy themed alternate universe” he reads aloud, pausing to make eye contact with the closest members (Haechan and Yuta) and waves his hand: “like one of those LARP game with the Lord of The Rings as the theme” he explains.

“God, I hate LARPing” Jaehyun mumbles.

“Shut up, you’re going to love it” Taeil corrects him, patting him on the shoulder.

“Every player picks a card from the box” Mark continues reading.

“Which box? This box?” Haechan asks, picking a small wooden box carved neatly from the carton box. It looks like a tiny version of those pirates’ chests kids in the Nineties used to play with. On terribly boring, rainy grey days. Possibly.

“Yeah, it must be that box” Mark continues: “every card has a character, so we pick a card to choose a character we want to be”

“Great” Jaehyun mumbles under his breath.

“Come on, Hyunnie” Johnny coaxes him: “just take it as if it was one of the games we play for the fans. You can use your acting skills”

“For real, though” Mark muses: “here it says, the game suggests you pretend as much as you can you have actually become whatever character you choose”

Jaehyun snorts but doesn’t reply. There is little he loves more than being able to show off his acting skills.

“What’s the setting?” Yuta asks.

“I guess a fantasy world? But wait, there is a description. A misfit band of nine join forces to save a fantasy kingdom. They don't know yet which trials they have to overcome or what exactly they have to do to save the day. But they know they have to work together to do so” Mark reads aloud, and raises his eyes to meet Yuta’s: “I guess that answer your question”

“Yes, but, I wanted to know if it’s going to be a postapocalyptic fantasy, a Tolkien fantasy, a middle age one… that kind of thing”

“Why are there so many” Jaehyun grumbles under his breath. Doyoung cuffs him on the back of his head.

“I guess you’ll see it once we start” he replies to Yuta.

“Let’s hear the characters” Taeyong suggests, prompting Mark to read on.

“Are they magic? Or normal boring stuff?” Jungwoo asks.

“Let him read and you’ll know” Doyoung replies, in the slightly sing-song way he does when he’s this close to being impolite.

Taeyong smirks at him knowingly, and opens his mouth, but before he can voice whatever teasing he’s about to, Mark hurries to start with the list of characters.

God knows the last thing they need now is Taeyong and Doyoung starting a fight, they’ll never get to play, and Mark sort of wants to, now. He’s curious, sue him.

“Each character has a role, and to win the game you need all of them. Oh, and it’s nine characters, so it’s perfect for us”

Doyoung raises an eyebrow, equally growing suspicious as surprised: “Wow, whoever sent us the game really picked us to play with it”

“Maybe it’s cursed” Taeyong whispers-shouts, face innocent but the glint in his eyes speaking louder than his actual words. Doyoung glares at him and slaps him on his arm, Taeyong recoiling just in time to avoid being hit.

“Quit it, you two” Johnny tells them sternly and with his index raised.

The way they both pout identically is sort of eerily, really.

Mark clears his throat again and resumes his reading task.

“Okay… so…” he skims through a few lines: “this is basically where they tell us we have to work together for the sake of victory… listen to me, I’m starting to speak weird just from reading out the instructions”

“Don’t worry Canada, you always speak weird”

“Thank you Haechan, I knew I could count on you”

“Always here to serve, my liege”

Mark snorts at that, because, liege? Seriously? Yuta frowns at the ceiling, mumbling under his breath the possible spelling of the old word. Taeil helps him and actually fishes his phone out to show him.

“So, we need teamwork, we get it. Move on” Jungwoo urges Mark.

“The characters move together through the board, on the slots. There are forty of them… and we move forward with the dices”

Doyoung peeks inside the box and digs around, finding two wooden dices. They are painted black with red dots, and the design is as neat and vintage looking as the one on the cards box.

“Only one person rolls the dices, and we have to pick who. Okay, this is weird, usually everyone rolls them at least once. No wait, here it say, only one specific character can roll the dices, and that’s the seer”

“So we have a seer” Jungwoo deduces loudly: “It must be magic characters then”

“The seer rolls the dices every time…?” Taeil presses, eyebrows raised in a pointed expression.

“Yes” Mark confirms: “but not for the first round”

“And why not?” Haechan asks.

“I don’t know. But it says that we need to pick an order on who does the tasks. So probably, even if it’s the same person rolling the dices, we take turns for the trials”

“This is confusing. Why not having each person doing the trial roll the dice when it’s their turn?” Doyoung complains.

“This time I agree, Doyoungie” Taeyong whines at his side.

Doyoung nods, then stops and glares at his elder, who is pointedly looking away, and smirking.

“Oh, you little..”

“And!” Mark exclaims, hurrying to interrupt them: “each slot we end up on, we have to pass a trial. Individually, I guess. The person whose turn it is, solves the problem, and then we roll the dices again and move forward. Well, up to here I’d say it’s easy, no?”

Mumbling in agreement and nodding follows.

“Okay, so. The aim is to get to the end without dying”

“Oh, that’s easy” Jungwoo chirps.

“Isn’t it funny how this is the most frequent aim of boardgames?” Jaehyun muses sarcastically.

“I thought you said you didn’t like them?” Haechan teases him, lifting an eyebrow.

“I don’t. It doesn’t mean I have never played with them”

“Mark, pass me the box, let’s see the characters” Johnny decides, crouching closer to the board game and crossing his legs under himself.

The rest of the members mimic him, taking place on the carpeted floor around the coffee table, where Mark and Johnny set the board and start laying down each character card.

“Looks like they all are fantasy creature” Taeyong muses, reading some of the names.

“And this is the seer that was mentioned before” Yuta comments, tapping his finger on one of the cards.

The cards are painted black, slick and glossy, completely empty on the back. On the front side there is a white slot in the middle of it, somewhat oval. In the middle there is a simple picture of what the creature is supposed to be, its name and characteristics listed right below in a handwritten-looking format.

“What’s an elemental?” Jaehyun asks.

“Read below, Jaehyunnie. There is the description literally below” Johnny replies, engrossed in the description of one of them.

“Actually, it depends on which one you mean. There are four of them, look. One for water, one for air, fire and this is for earth” Mark answers, raising a card in front of him.

“And it says it’s a dryad” Jungwoo reads, leaning closer to the card Mark is holding up.

“What do the instructions say?” Doyoung asks.

Mark fetches the booklet from where he’s dropped it and skims through lines, until he reaches the part he needs.

“Elementals are creatures attuned with nature. They control one specific part of it. So that’s why you have one for water, air, and so on”

“Okay, so we’ve got four. Then there is the seer, which Yuta is holding” Taeyong says, pointing at the card Yuta is holding up and showing them.

“And those left are creatures like, Halloween style creatures” Jaehyun continues, tapping on the closest one: “this is a vampire, and that’s a werewolf”

“Cool!” Yuta exclaims, dropping unceremoniously the seer card on the coffee table and picking up the werewolf one instead.

“The instructions say that while elementals have control on a specific aspect of nature, the creatures have extra strength and speed. They also have extra-healing abilities and have a higher resistance to harm”

“So basically, you don’t do cool things with fire or water, but you don’t die easily” Haechan sums up.

Mark nods: “That’s a way to put it”

“And this is the case of the werewolf, the vampire and the… what’s this? What’s an Incubus?” Taeyong asks, frowning at the card and immediately engrossed in reading the description.

“In the Anglo-Saxon lore, an incubus is like a vampire, but feeds on life force instead of blood” Johnny supplies: “generally through sex. Or that’s a succubus? And it might be while their victim is asleep or unconscious, I think”

“That’s not perverted at all” Doyoung muses.

“Like a fox demon” Yuta smirks.

“Well, here it doesn’t say anything about the victim being asleep, but sex might be” Taeyong comments, sounding vaguely uncomfortable: “listen. The incubus lives on the life force they take from their victim. They absorb this life force during sexual intercourse. They can also feed on sexual desire only. Wow, this really is weird”

“And it’s perfect for you” Doyoung smirks at him.

Taeyong raises both eyebrows at him: “Me?? I thought Haechan or Johnny. Or Jaehyun!”

“No, actually, I think Doyoung hyung is right” Jaehyun replies, picking up a card and waving it: “Also, I want to be the vampire”

Snorts follow.

“I don’t want to be the sex demon” Taeyong protests, pouting and whining.

“But you are perfect for it” Doyoung teases him.

Taeyong punches him in the shoulder in retaliation.

“Come on hyung, it’s just a game!” Jungwoo laughs: “and you’re the most handsome of us, it has to be you”

“Why? The vampire gets to be pretty, too” Taeyong objects.

“That’s why I’ve picked it” Jaehyun smirks, gloating and waving the card again.

Taeyong rolls his eyes but accepts defeat. It’s just a game, after all, right?

“Anyway” Mark comments loudly, attracting again the attention of his members on himself: “the vampire, the incubus and the siren have some special abilities that the werewolf doesn’t have, because they have the power to charm their victim and make them do what they want”

Yuta, who has picked up the werewolf card in a rather possessive way, nods sagely: “Exactly. We focus on strength. We don’t need magic to get our preys”

“Hyung, that’s creepy” Haechan points out.

Yuta shrugs: “That’s why I like it” he replies, his smirk blooming into a full grin.

“Yeah, okay, you’re definitely the werewolf. Okay, Jaehyun is the vampire and Taeyong is the incubus. What about the siren?” Doyoung asks, tapping on the remaining card.

“And the seer?” Haechan asks, pushing the card in the middle.

“The siren can charm people to do what they want. Oh, we must give it to someone with a pretty voice. I’d say it has to be either Taeil hyung or Doyoung hyung or Haechan” Mark suggests.

“I don’t think I want it. I want to be the elemental of air” Taeil decides, picking up the card: “it says it can fly, that’s much cooler!”

“What? What’s cooler than having a voice so good people do what you want?” Haechan snorts, incredulous.

“Yeah, and just for that comment, Haechan gets the siren” Doyoung decides, sliding the card close to the younger.

Haechan smirks and shrugs, not looking displeased in the least.

“What does the seer do?” Taeyong asks, peeking over the card Doyoung is nervously tapping over.

“Here it says that they don’t control anything like the rest of the characters, but they can see the future. And if they pass a trail, they can become telepaths. Yah, I don’t know if I want it anymore”

“Oh come on, it’s really perfect for you, Doie” Taeyong teases him: “it suits you so well”

Doyoung glares at him: “Stop teasing me just because I told you you’d be a good sex demon”

“Okay, let’s pretend you didn’t tell me that because it’s just creepy, thank you” Taeyong snorts.

The members laugh.

“Seriously though, I think you’d be good, hyung” Mark insists.

“Why? You could be a good one too. And you’re the one reading the instructions. It would be fitting, to have you rolling the dices too”

“Naaa, I want the elemental of fire” Mark smiles, taking up said card.

Doyoung grimaces at the card, then sighs: “Doesn’t anybody else want it?”

“Just take it, Doyoung, it’s just a game” Johnny points out.

“And think about the power it will give you” Jaehyun comments, wiggling his eyebrows.

Doyoung rolls his eyes, but looks vaguely consoled at that, and slides the card close to his chest.

“Okay, let me go through each character, so we all know what we can do, okay?” Mark suggests.

A chorus of agreement follows.

“The first one here is the werewolf. And it’s Yuta hyung. You’ll have superhuman strength, speed, you’ll get faster healing and natural resistance to almost everything. Questions?”

“What about silver and stuff?” Johnny asks.

“Well, I don’t know if they’d be lethal but here it says that silver and mistletoe can harm a werewolf by slowing down his healing considerably. So maybe it doesn’t kill you but still, watch out” Mark warns.

Yuta nods: “Got it”

“Oh, and, it says that you can turn into a real wolf whenever you want, and partially shift if you need it, but on the nights of full moon you won’t get to choose and just turn. What the fuck? How is this information useful for just a board game? Do they expect us to play for a month or something?”

“Maybe the time in the game goes faster. Like, in some games days pass with the rolling of the dices” Johnny suggests.

“Still, what does ‘shift’ even mean?” Doyoung frowns.

“That I can turn completely into a wolf if I want to. Come on, Doyoung, this is basic Twilight knowledge” Yuta replies.

“Still weird” Doyoung insists.

“Weirder than Twilight” Taeyong nods: “but maybe it helps for some task?”

They shrug.

“Next one?” Mark asks, and noises of agreements answer him.

The next character is the vampire, whose description Jaehyun follows with eerie attention. If possible, he looks even more engrossed than Yuta with the abilities of his new character, and he definitely doesn’t look like he minds playing a roleplay game anymore.

“Strong, fast and healing quickly, that’s basically what I already am” Jaehyun boasts with a grin.

Johnny shoves him amicably and they share a grin.

“You’ll be resistant to basically anything, and you get the charm power. So you can influence people. Oh, and, also animals. Dunno why you’d need that, though” Mark wonders.

“Maybe if we are attacked by one?” Jaehyun supposes, shrugging.

“I repeat, how weird is this? Why would anyone identify themselves with a character so much that this information would turn out useful?” Doyoung asks.

“No idea, but, this is cool hyung, listen here. As a vampire, you can control some part of nature, even if you’re not an elemental. This means you have power on earthly creatures, like bats and wolves, and mice and cats, but also on things like wind and deep water during storms. Or you can summon clouds, to cover the sun presumably. Cool, no?”

“What do you mean, control on wolves?” Yuta asks, sounding almost offended.

“That I’m your boss, wolf-boy” Jaehyun teases him.

Yuta glares at him, upper lip curling in a way that eerily like a wolf showing teeth.

“Hyung, please, that’s creepy. Stop it” Haechan begs.

“Oh, and there is more” Mark says.

“More? How many things does Jaehyun hyung get to be able to do?!”

“It just says that they’re stronger at night. Which means they can go around during the day but are less powerful”

“Whatever, read us the weaknesses, please. Jaehyun needs his ego put back to a decent size” Doyoung says, with a commanding gesture of his hand.

Mark snorts but hurries to comply: “Weaknesses include silver, garlic, crosses, they can't enter a house where a human is living without invitation. Oh, and, if they cut your head or burn you, hyung, you will be dead for good”

“I’ll keep that in mind” Jaehyun comments, chirping and sarcastic at the same time.

“Weird game, I repeat” Haechan mumbles, shaking his head.

Taeyong and Doyoung share a silent look, in agreement.

“Ah, and, obviously, as a vampire you will need to feed on blood. The rule is, you get to do a lot of cool things but the catch is, you have to feed at least once in the game”

Jaehyun shrugs: “I don’t see how that would be a catch” he points out.

Yuta agrees.

“Who’s next?” Johnny asks.

Mark resumes his reading, the next character being Taeyong’s, the incubus. The sex demon gets superhuman strength and speed, not much differently from the other two creatures whose descriptions they’ve already read. Yuta comments that if everyone has what he believed to be his specific abilities, he’ll end up looking much weaker than what he’d hoped.

Taeyong the sex demon will also be able to count on fast healing and natural resistance to almost everything, just as vampire Jaehyun and were-Yuta.

“Did you just call me were-Yuta?” Yuta squeals.

“Oh my God Mark, what have you done, he likes it”

“Yes, and I really hate Taeyong the sex demon, thank you” Taeyong protests.

“Oh, I think it suits you just fine” Doyoung teases him, waving him off.

Mark laughs, the guffawing covering the sound Doyoung makes when Taeyong hits him.

“Sex Demon Taeyong… S D T. Oh my God! STD!” He bursts out laughing and collapses on his back on the floor, shouting the acronyms. The members look at him with baffled expressions.

“Sexually transmitted diseases” Johnny explains, with a look of pained embarrassment: “Only Mark could find this funny”

“No wait, then it is funny!” Jaehyun protests, and laughs himself: “Sex Taeyong Demon as an Incubus is more lethal than a sexually transmitted disease!”

Doyoung laughs before he can catch himself and throws an apologetic look at Taeyong.

“I mean… sex demons could be seen as sexual diseases, no?”

“I’m not syphilis, Doyoung” Taeyong glares.

“No, you’re deadlier than that” Yuta grins.

Taeyong sighs loudly, rolling his eyes.

“Whatever, can we go back to the description please?”

Haechan kicks Mark, who was already trying to sober up and go back to read.

“You can charm people but you won’t have any power on nature, like Jaehyun instead. But the pros is, you will be equally strong during day or night time”

“Well, that’s a relief. I can suck the life out of people at midday, too” Taeyong sarcastically comments.

“And your only weaknesses are silver or fire. So, don’t get burnt, hyung”

“Thank you, Mark, I’ll keep it in mind”

“Oh, and, just as Jaehyun, you will have to feed at least once in the game” Mark adds.

Taeyong shrugs and ignores the look Doyoung throws his way.

Yes, it is weird, that a game would specify that requirement. But still, it’s a game. Not something he really has to do. Maybe he will have to, what, skip a turn? Whatever.

“Next is the siren” Mark announces.

“Oh, finally!” Haechan loudly exclaims.

“You basically get to charm creatures around him. You won’t have any power on nature, but this means you can tell animals or people to do what you want. Or other creatures, I guess. Wow, that’s.. admittedly not bad, uh. Imagine you can just tell a dragon to take you for a ride”

“Mark, I get it that the game tells us we should identify ourselves with the characters, but, you know dragons aren’t real, right?” Haechan asks, eyebrows raised and pointed expression.

Mark blushes but ignores him, sort of.

“Whatever. Anyway. You don’t need to feed, and you don’t prey on people like the other creatures, but anything with a mind or will is subjected to you. Which basically is a twisted way to say, you get anyone with a mind to do what you want. And the weakness is that, beside this, you’re just a normal human being”

Haechan snorts: “Okay, so, this isn’t me being a siren, this is me being literally me”

Taeil pushes him and sends him toppling over. It’s well deserved, as witnessed by the members laughing.

“What about me?” Doyoung asks: “can you read me?”

“Yours is actually the next one. The seer… it says that they can unlock the ability to turn into a telepath. You can see the past, present or future. That might come in handy, if we need to figure out what happened and are not sure. Oh, and, you will have visions or feelings. Like, hunches. Premonitions”

“That’s really like you” Taeyong comments, smiling at Doyoung: “you get a lot of ‘feelings’ about stuff, you know?”

“If you’re referring to that time I told you not to eat from that buffet at breakfast, I’ll let you know that it was purely common sense. The food looked awful, hyung” Doyoung protests, rolling his eyes.

“No, but, a lot of times you tell me not to do things and to do others instead. And it turns out to be better that way” Taeyong insists.

Doyoung crosses his arms on his chest: “I repeat, hyung, that is just common sense”

“I agree though. It suits you” Mark steps in: “and to go back to the description, you will be basically a normal human, but with the Sight. Capital S”

“So I won’t need my glasses? Doyoung asks, sarcasm dripping from his voice loud and clear.

“You will be the only one to be able to roll the dices after the first round” Mark goes on: “and when you’re done with your trial you’ll get the telepathy”

“That’d be cool” Taeyong muses, looking at Doyoung.

Doyoung grimaces: “I don’t know. And anyway! Can we please stop acting like this is real?”

Taeyong snorts: “Then why are you worried?”

Good point.

But Taeyong sneaks his hand close right after, consoling Doyoung by intertwining their fingers.

“So, only the elementals are left. I said I’d like to be the fire. Taeil hyung, you wanted air, right?” Mark asks.

“I can be water” Johnny shrugs, turning to Jungwoo.

“That’s perfect, because I wanted the dryad” Jungwoo smiles.

“The earth elemental, you mean” Yuta corrects him.

“No, were-Yuta. It’s also called a dryad” Jungwoo singsongs.

Yuta likes his nickname too much to complain about the jab, and beams at the younger.

“He’s right” Mark says: “Anyway, let’s go in order. Air elemental is the first here. You are a normal human but with total control on nature from the point of view of air. So yes, Taeil hyung, I guess you can fly”

Taeil makes a cheerful whooping sound and fist-pumps the air in front of him.

“Then, water, Johnny hyung… Same, but with water. Maybe you'll get to swim really well?” Mark smiles.

Johnny shrugs: “I can already do that”

“Maybe you won’t need to breathe underwater” Yuta suggests.

“Yes, if the game was real” Doyoung repeats, sternly.

Taeyong squeezes his hand around Doyoung’s, and lays a soft kiss on the back of his knuckles.

“Whatever. Then there’s me, fire… baby I’m your fire” he sings: “okay, so, same thing. Oh! It says I can also create fire from out of nothing. That would be cool! And I can manipulate things that can be worked with fire. Uh, I guess that means metal? That’s pretty great, though, I like it!”

“What about me?” Jungwoo asks: “I’m the only one missing now”

“Yeah, sorry. You are an earth spirit, or dryad. You are a normal human, but, as an elemental, will have total control of anything from the point of view of your element. So I’m guessing you’ll be very good with flowers? Ahah. And, oh, cool! You can talk to plants. Or, trees? Like, here it says that you can pick up on what any type of vegetation feels and potentially you can communicate with them. I wasn’t that far with the super green thumbs thing, then”

Jungwoo snorts: “I’d like to really have that, so I could ask a potted plant to choke you now” Jungwoo chirps happily.

“Uh, that escalated pretty quickly!” Johnny laughs.

“Okay, so, let’s recap” Taeyong decides, sitting up again.

“There’s were-Yuta, vamp Jaehyun, then there’s me”

“You mean, SDT” Johnny insists, and Mark and Jaehyun giggle: “Come on, if you spell it like this it even sounds different”

Taeyong rolls his eyes: “Whatever. Anyway. There is me, then siren Haechan, air spirit Taeil, water spirit Johnny, Mark the god of fire and Jungwoo the dryad. And Doyoungie the seer. Did I get it all right?”

Sounds of agreement follow.

“We have to pick an order now, for the trials. We need to decide who starts” Mark says, handing the booklet with the instructions over to Doyoung: “here, you’re the Seer, you should read them”

Doyoung reluctantly accepts it: “It’s not like I couldn’t read it from you whenever I have to” he mumbles. He squeezes his hand under Taeyong’s harder. Taeyong squeezes back.

“Let’s do this quickly, let’s keep it order by age, uh? From the oldest to the youngest” Yuta suggests.

“I agree with were-Yuta” Haechan approves.

Yuta beams: “I think I’m going to make you all start calling me that from now on. I love it!”

Snorting sounds follow, because, go figure.

“I mean, vamp Jaehyun doesn’t sound bad either” Jaehyun comments, pretending to be thinking about it.

“Yah, if anyone dares to call me STD or SDT anywhere out of this room, I’m breaking his legs” Taeyong threatens.

“Yeah, plus fans might get the wrong idea” Mark grimaces.

“Okay, so, now that we have the order for the trials picked, what should we do?” Haechan asks, suddenly eager to start playing.

“Well, I guess Taeil hyung has to roll the dices, no?” Doyoung asks, pointing his chin in directions of the wooden cubes.

“Weren’t you the only one supposed to do that?” Jaehyun frowns.

“No, not at the start of the game. The first one is actually Taeil hyung” Doyoung explains, waving the hand still clutching the instructions. The other is still firmly holding Taeyong’s.

“Okay, so, let’s go!” Taeil screams, smiling happily as he rolls the dices.

“Three!” the members exclaim, and Taeil picks up the tiny wooden flag they’re supposed to use to keep track of which slot they are on, and deposits on the third slot.

Everything goes dark.


	3. Lift Me Up (Air)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Air's trial.

The grey sky.

The smell of salt water, the air tense, loaded with the electricity that precedes a storm.

The sky is grey, yes, full of clouds. They look frightening, turning the sky a livid color, the hue of a bruise. Heavy with rain, looking too ready to unload every drop.

It’s impossible to assess the time.

There is light, yes, but it could be any time during the day. Doyoung blinks rapidly a couple of times, shielding his strained eyes with the palm of his hand. He struggles to sit up, has to lean on an elbow. He moves slowly and even so for the first seconds is overwhelmed by vertigo. Once it settles, he blinks again, taking in his surroundings.

Time could be any, impossible to pinpoint, yes, but the place is much easier to identify. Rocky terrain under his body, unyielding. He definitely is not lying on his comfortable bed, no sir, that is easy to ascertain. But for everything else, the jury’s still out, it seems.

Legs splayed in front of him, he raises his eyes and blinks owlishly, lips parted in an unflattering dumb expression by the surprise, and tries to explain himself what the tall extent of rock in front of him is.

It’s a cliff, his brain supplies, and yes, thank you brain, it is, indeed, a cliff. It’s the reason why I am suddenly waking up at the bottom of a cliff, the thing that I would like you to help me to explain.

Sadly, his brain doesn’t offer anything in lieu of a possible explanation to that problem.

And that’s too bad, isn’t it.

He swallows nervously and gathers his wit, making to stand up. It’s easier than his first attempt at verticality, the vertigo having disappeared entirely. The salty scent and sticky quality of the air make sense, too, now that he stands up and recognizes what lies behind him.

The sea. The vastness of the sea, never stopping waves, foaming when they clash on the rocks a few meters from Doyoung. Some of the drops reach him, and land cold and wet on his cheeks.

Instinctively, Doyoung takes a step back and brings trembling fingers to his offended cheek. He caresses his skin and checks the tip of his fingers, now wet. Then he raises his eyes again, still astonished by what he at the same time, can and can not understand.

How in hell has he ended at the bottom of a cliff, on a small patch of land that is threatened at any time to be swallowed under the waves?

Well, small.

He looks around. This could either be the smallest beach ever known to mankind, or a very large rock. Though the sand under his shoes, some of it still stuck to his hair and back, would suggest the former.

He looks again at the sky now, and decides that it cannot be morning, or midday. The sky is too grey, certainly because of the stormy clouds, but still the light is not the bright light of early morning.

Maybe it’s afternoon? Or maybe it’s just wintertime. Sure, it was late spring, last he remembered.

But then again, last thing he knew was that he was at the dorm, not at the bottom of a cliff. If the scenery has changed, why not the season as well? The time sure has. It was night, wasn’t it – yes. They were at the dorm, it was night, after dinner. And now, now he’s here, stuck between a sea darkening by the hours, under a sky that threatens storm, and a tall cliff at his back, offering no easy way up.

What the hell.

Time and place have surely abandoned the building and are no longer friends with rationality, because they definitely do not make sense.

Doyoung trembles again, less in shock now and more because of the chilly air, the wet drops of water still reaching him with the bigger waves. He hugs himself, tightening his forearms close to his body, turns, looks around, realizes that he’s not alone.

His heartbeats wildly in his chest as he takes in slumped bodies, the forms of his members.

Among them, Taeil, sitting up, blinking just as owlishly as Doyoung must have done little before, taking in the cliff, the sky, the sea… and Doyoung.

“What the hell?!” the elder mutters under his breath, eyes wide and rapidly moving from Doyoung to the cliff, back and forth.

“I have no idea” Doyoung replies, frank and trembling. He walks closer to his friend, stumbles slightly.

Only then he realizes one of his hands is still clutching something.

“What’s that?” Taeil asks.

Doyoung lifts his eyes, finds Taeil looking curiously at the small booklet Doyoung’s hand is still holding. Doyoung blushes, embarrassed that he’s still so out of it it’s taken him this long to even realize what his own body is doing.

He covers it up with brisk movements, opening the booklet and showing it to Taeil, too.

The elder is half-way crouched when he stops, recognizes the pages of the instruction of the board game, and his face whitens.

Doyoung distantly registers his brain pointing out that the way Taeil falls back on his butt is somewhat funny, and would be hilarious, coupled with that expression…if it wasn’t for the absurdity of the entire situation.

“Tell me those aren’t the instruction of that fucking game!” Taeil squeaks.

Doyoung, still blushing, frowns at the pages, wondering why the fuck has his body thought of holding onto that, and not something more useful. Like, a phone? To call for help? Doyoung’s brain points out that he doesn’t even know if, wherever they are, phones will work. But that is the real question, isn’t it –where, where are they?

Doyoung trembles, and gnaws his teeth together, refusing to even entertain the idea that they might…

“Tell me I’m drunk, Doyoung” Taeil pleads, with a very pathetic and desperate face from where he’s still sitting on his butt, legs splayed in front of him. Like a child, Doyoung thinks. Like you were only a few moments ago, his brain adds. Doyoung ignores it.

“Tell me I’m drunk and we are not in the game. Tell me, please” Doyoung’s throat is too dry for him to swallow the mouthful of saliva. 

He looks around, turns to face the sea and discretely pinches his own arm hard. The pain is too real.

“You’re not dreaming” he tells Taeil.

Or at least I am not, he thinks.

“This is real” he adds, turning to stare at the cliff, following the way it goes up, and up, and up, and looks too smooth to be climbed.

“We can’t have fallen from that height” he reasons aloud: “we would have died”

Taeil starts to nod in agreement, opens his mouth to reply, when a groan makes them both jump, and they quickly turn to the pile of bodies.

Someone is stirring awake. Doyoung dashes to them, shaking bodies and having limbs come loose from that human tangling knot, and finds Taeyong’s blinking eyes looking up at him.

Doyoung’s heart clenches in his chest, at the way his best friend beats his lashes and squints against the light.

“Doie?” he asks, deep voice turned raspy, like whenever he wakes up.

Doyoung drags him away from the pile – he distantly recognizes Yuta’s legs, Haechan’s hands, sees Johnny’s face, notices the way Johnny’s eyelids show signs of movements. He pulls Taeyong closer until the leader is all but crouched forward against Doyoung’s chest, his long legs folded over Doyoung’s, arms laced behind Doyoung’s back.

“…Ouch, my head” he whines after a while, hiding his face in Doyoung’s shirt.

Irrationally, Doyoung feels the strongest pull to cup the back of Taeyong’s head, and cradles it with his hand, bends his neck to press the softest of butterfly kisses to Taeyong’s hair. Something wild is going on in his heart and mind, and he feels the sudden, unexpected, unexplainable urge to cry.

He doesn’t know how long he spends there, kneeling with Taeyong’s body pressed against his and fighting down the tears, trying to settle the panic.

In the meantime, Taeil has helped into a sitting position more than one of the members. Johnny is looking up at the cliff, with Mark crawling over the beach to join him – he actually stumbles at the last moment and Johnny has to catch him before he faceplants himself in the dirt.

“Oh. That’s a really high cliff” Mark points out, in English.

Johnny makes a small sound of agreement, then pushes himself up to a standing position. He looks around, his expression not much less bewildered than what Doyoung’s was.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me” he murmurs, still in English.

Mark stands up, still keeping close to him, like a shadow or a puppy, and latches onto the older boy even physically, sneaking a hand under Johnny’s arm.

“Are we…are we in the game?!” he whispers-shrieks.

Johnny is still squinting under his hand, eyes trained on the sea.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Mark”

“What the fuck have you given me to drink, am I still drunk now? Jaehyun, am I dreaming? Did we have a drinking match?” Haechan asks, squinting around and looking in what Doyoung is really struggling not to define a very adorable way, but he can’t help it, the way Haechan looks almost unconsolably around, sad and confused and pathetic.

“If you did, you would be dead now, Haechannie, because we both know you wouldn’t stand a chance against me. And, also, if I am this drunk now that I am seeing this shit, then you must be faring much worse”

Doyoung snorts at that. Taeyong pushes his face away from Doyoung’s chest, looks up at him, meets his eyes, and turns around, finally taking in where they are.

Doyoung watches, taking in the way Taeyong’s face does something complicated, filling up with too many emotions at first, then covering them up with the blankest stare Doyoung’s ever seen on the leader.

Taeyong stands, using Doyoung as leverage and then helping him up as well. By doing so, his eyes lands on the booklet Doyoung is still clutching.

“Is… Doie, please, give me that” he asks.

Doyoung complies, offering him the booklet of the instructions of the game.

Taeyong looks at the papers, turns some, closes the booklet again and looks around, at a loss for words, and yet looking far less lost than most of them.

“This cannot be” he murmurs.

“What if we’ve been drugged?” Jaehyun asks, pushing Haechan into a standing position and then helping Jungwoo do the same.

Yuta, on his knees, looks with squinted eyes at the top of the cliff, silent. Doyoung notices he looks like he’s breathing in the salty air.

“What if this is a game?” Haechan suggests, and then promptly groans: “Hey!” he shouts, directionless: “hey! Someone from the staff! This game sucks! Brings us back!”

“I don’t think it’s a game” Johnny replies, smooth voice that makes him sound sure and calm.

Doyoung checks his eyes, though, and sees the way the elder is close to panic just like Doyoung himself is. Johnny turns to him, then, and Doyoung almost startles at being caught staring. He swallows.

“We were playing” Taeyong says distractedly, eyes looking at the sea, the sky, the cliff.

“Doyoung” he calls, turning again to pin him with a hard stare that Doyoung is used to see only from Taeyong’s stage persona: “we were playing, weren’t we? And Taeil hyung rolled the dices and scored three, didn’t he?”

“Yeah” Taeil confirms, voice trembling slightly: “I did”

“Doie, read us the instructions. What does it say for slot three?” Taeyong asks, eyes hard.

Doyoung swallows, looks at the booklet that he is now clutching with both hands.

“You cannot be serious” Haechan exclaims: “Hyung, tell me you’re joking!”

“I don’t think he is” Johnny calmly says: “look at the cliff. It’s too high, right? We can’t have fallen from there, or we would have died. None of us is injured, we don’t even have a scratch. Or am I wrong? Anyone hurt?”

He turns quickly to scan the rest of the group, but everyone is shaking their heads.

“So what, staff must have deposited here from up! Like, like… with a helicopter, something!” Haechan insists, shrill voice sounding panicked. Then he groans and covers his face with his hands.

Jaehyun sighs and places a comforting hand on his shoulders, trying to sooth him.

“I don’t think so, Haechannie”

“I mean” Taeyong cracks a smile, and looks innocently at the sky: “I don’t want to say it, because it sounds crazy. But. I think we are in the game”

“The boardgame. That game” Jungwoo repeats, sounding skeptical: “The one where you’re supposed to be a sex demon, Jaehyun a vampire, Yuta a werewolf, and Doyoung a seer. That game?”

“Well, I hope you don’t expect me to make you guys fly over that cliff then” Taeil replies, surprising Doyoung for the way his voice sounds so calm all of a sudden, if one ignores the sarcasm.

Yuta clears his throat.

The sound isn’t particularly loud, but, because it’s the first Yuta has made since arriving wherever they are, it attracts a lot of attention.

“Uhm. I think Taeyong might be right. Jaehyun, don’t you… don’t you feel anything different?” he asks tentatively, his voice doing a weird retake halfway through the question.

Jaehyun frowns, and opens his mouth, blatantly about to demand what the other means, when he stops, with eyes that go blank and unfocused. He clicks his mouth back shut, turns to look at the waves, at the sky, then roam his gaze over all the members, and finally goes back to meet Yuta’s.

“I… I think I can smell more? And, like. I could be wrong, but” he stops, swallows.

He throws a careful glance at Haechan and drops the arm that had draped over the younger’s shoulders.

“I think I can hear your heartbeats” he reveals.

“You what?!” Haechan exclaims.

“Quiet, Haechan. I can, too” Yuta goes on, holding eyes with Jaehyun, nodding slowly. He moves his eyes to the rest of them, settles finally on Taeyong: “and I can smell all of you. Like, the scent of your skin. Under the soap, the cologne, the deodorant. I can… I think I can smell the way you’re feeling?”

“What does that even mean?” Jungwoo asks, frowning: “how would you do that? An emotion has no scent”

“True, but hormones do” Johnny replies, meeting Yuta’s gaze with an impenetrable stare: “you might be getting that”

Yuta shrugs.

“Okay, then” Taeil exclaims, clutching one hand over Yuta’s wrist and attracting his attention: “Tell me what I’m feeling” he challenges.

Yuta frowns, looking like he doesn’t appreciate the way he’s manhandled, but then he pales slightly, swallows, realizing that he can, in fact, detect the mood of the elder boy. Not just by guessing, or reading his body language. But with his nose.

“You’re afraid” he simply answers.

Haechan snorts: “Well, who wouldn’t be, in this situation”

“Yah, that was too easy” Jungwoo protests: “it’s not that I don’t trust you, hyung, but, all of us are afraid right now. Give us something more”

Yuta frowns, and Doyoung doesn’t need any particular extra sense to guess that he doesn’t appreciate being treated like some freak. He opens the booklet, turns the page, remembering what Taeyong asked him.

Check what the instructions say for the third slot. There is a page for every slot. And at the page he needs…

“Oh”

The sound he makes is small, but it attracts the attention of every member.

“Oh, what?” Taeyong prompts, stepping closer to him and peering at the instructions from over Doyoung’s shoulder.

“…Oh” Taeyong echoes.

“Oh, what?” Haechan demands: “Hyungs?”

Doyoung swallows, meets Taeyong’s gaze, and notices the subtle way Taeyong swallows nervously as well. They hold eyes for a few seconds, not needing to speak. Then Taeyong sighs quietly and nods at the page.

Doyoung widens his eyes, as if asking, are you sure? But Taeyong just nods.

Doyoung turns to the rest of them.

“I think we are definitely in the game” he starts, straightening the booklet in his hands and holding it as an oracle of sorts: “listen. Slot three is a patch of barren land. The beach will disappear under the sea, and you shall perish if the champion does not transport you to the top of the cliff. It sounds like the game knows exactly where we are, doesn’t it?”

Jungwoo’s eyebrows have risen comically up to his hairline, and he nods vigorously: “And by you shall perish they mean…”

“That we die, Jungwoo” Jaehyun airily replies, eyes frowning at the darkening sky: “and those clouds sure look bad enough to make me believe that shit”

“The sea as well” Johnny adds in a gloomy voice: “I think a storm is coming, and we don’t want to be here for that”

“Okay, you’ve got me. I believe you” Haechan exclaims, turning to clutch at Taeil’s shirt and shaking vehemently: “Hyung, do something!”

Taeil looks flabbergasted: “Me??” he shrieks: “What do you expect me to do??”

“The trial is for you, hyung” Mark answers: “and you wanted the Air elemental, didn’t you?”

“Yah, but that doesn’t mean I can really fly!” Taeil protests, cheeks reddening progressively.

Yuta and Jaehyun share a silent look, a guarded expression that goes unnoticed by many, but not by Doyoung. Taeyong worries his bottom lip, face just as neutral, but Doyoung has a vague idea what kind of thoughts must be worrying their leader.

Because if the game is true, then Taeil can, indeed fly. And Jaehyun, Yuta and Taeyong….

“Whatever” Taeyong exclaims, smothering whatever fear under a façade of calm and resolution: “hyung, you’ve got to at least try. Maybe the game is real enough and now you really can fly. And if you can, you have to take all of us up there. I don’t think we could climb”

“It looks too slippery” Mark nods in agreement.

“And I think you’re mad, if you think I can fly, let alone levitate someone else” Taeil insists, growing more and more red by the minute.

“Okay, look, just try, okay? Worst case scenario nothing happens” Johnny suggests.

“To do what?? Have you forgotten that I have never done this?? I don’t even know what I am supposed to do!”

“Hyungs, the storm is coming, so I suggest we start figuring a way out of this really fast” Jaehyun replies, voice sharp, pointing his finger towards the sky.

Taeil opens his mouth, about to insult him, but then he stops, catching sight of the dark sky, now turning almost black. A storm is coming alright, and a bad one, too. They really cannot stay here. He sighs, swears under his breath and slides a hand through his hair, frantically looking around.

“Try with a stone” Haechan suggests, guessing his thoughts: “a small one”

“Here, hyung, this one” Mark says, and kicks a small pebble closer to Taeil.

The eldest boy lowers his eyes to it, and Doyoung wonders if he’s ever seen calm and placid Taeil look this frightened. But then Taeil pushes it all down, exhales with decision, and stares intensely at the pebble.

Obviously, nothing happens.

“Hyung, are you doing something?” Haechan asks.

“Shht!”Mark chides him, slapping his arm.

“I just wanted to know if he started” Haechan protests.

“Shut up, both of you!” Johnny scolds them.

“Yah! How do you expect me to do this! This is fucking impossible, come on!” Taeil shouts in frustration, and gesticulates wildly, shaking an arm out, towards the sea.

The pebble is sent flying, and lands in the waves, disappearing from sight.

For a few long seconds, the only sound they hear is the increasing intensity of the blowing wind, the crashing noise of the waves. The dripping of the light rain that starts to fall.

“Holy…shit, hyung, was that you?” Taeyong asks, mouth rounded into an ‘o’ and eyes as wide as saucers.

They’re really big, Doyoung notices.

“I… I don’t know?” Taeil replies, hesitant.

“Here, try again” Mark hurries to pass him another pebble, slightly bigger.

Taeil looks at him with a frustrated expression, then lowers his eyes on the pebble, looking curious.

He hesitates, then gesticulates again, shakes his hand in a calmer movement, back and forth. The pebble trembles, floats in the air, a few centimeters from the soil, and swings back and forth, in a movement that very much resembles the ones Taeil’s hand is drawing.

“Holy shit!” Jaehyun whispers-shouts.

“Holy fucking shit!” Haechan exclaims, beaming.

Mark bursts out in one of his hysterically looking laughing fit.

“You did it, hyung!” Taeyong praises, looking at Taeil with admiration and surprise in equal measure.

“I… I have no idea what I’m doing” Taeil admits, sheepishly, and the pebble is left to fall back to the ground.

“Try with his, this one is bigger” Yuta suggests, rolling a bigger pebble, almost a stone, towards their eldest.

“Try to raise it higher. As high as you can” Johnny suggests.

Taeil struggles at first, but then his control on the stone is much firmer than before. He sends the stone so high it almost touches the top of the cliff. The boys give him a second one, and this one is safely deposited at the top of the cliff. They are left with their nose up, staring, in silent contemplation.

“Okay, now I just have to do it with something fifty times heavier” Taeil tells himself, and it’s clear he’s trying to cheer himself up despite how close to panic he still is.

“Try to levitate yourself, only for a bit” Taeyong suggests.

“No, try with one of us. If by chance you manage to get yourself up there and then you can’t bring us with you, we are all screwed” he replies.

Taeyong screws up his face at that, admittedly caught in failure, and nods.

“I guess it’d be best if you tried lifting one by one all of us, hyung, maybe”

Taeil sighs and seems to fight with his own fears, finally steeling his expression.

“I will start with Yuta, he’s one of the lightest” he announces, and Yuta promptly stands up.

“No, wait, start with me. I’m lighter than him” Taeyong protests.

“No way, hyung” Yuta silences him: “if by any chance Taeil drops me, I don’t have a back already half broken”

“I don’t have it either” Taeyong glares at him.

“Maybe, but you were injured until a little ago. We are not risking you” Yuta adamantly replies, not caring for the disrespect he might be showing.

“I agree, Yong. I will start with Yuta” Taeil insists, siding with the Japanese boy.

Yuta nods again, walks until he’s in front of Taeil, then stops to look at him, arms loose along his hips.

He looks nervous, but he’s trying to control it.

“Do your worst, I guess” he mutters.

Taeil doesn’t bother snorting, and that’s proof enough of how tense he is. Taeil closes his eyes, breathes through his nose, then directs his eyes on the ground under Yuta’s feet. Yuta twitches nervously, unable to keep himself perfectly still, but otherwise doesn’t move. The rest of them are quiet, watching silently.

Suddenly, Yuta gasps, swaying his hands in the air as if struggling to regain a balance he’s losing. Only the tip of his feet touches the ground.

“Yooooh!”Mark cheers, Haechan and Jungwoo echoing him.

“Shhht!”Taeil orders, beams of sweat appearing on his forehead.

Yuta bites his lower lip and grinds his teeth together, trying to hold his body as still and stiff as he can. It seems to be helping, as the floating quickens in pace and precision. Taeil manages to lift Yuta a few meters off the ground, then decides to try and go for the top of the cliff. He looks at Yuta’s eyes for the briefest moment, and the boy nods back, approving.

The moment Yuta’s feet touch the top of the cliff the members start screaming.

“You did it!!”

“Oh my god hyung, you did it!”

“Shit, I can’t believe it!”

“Hyung, how was it?”

“Amazing!” Yuta replies, beaming and laughing.

Taeyong walks right in front of Taeil: “Do me now” he demands.

Taeil nods, and complies.

Either because Taeyong is somewhat lighter, or because Taeil has now figured out what he is supposed to do, Taeyong reaches the top of the cliff much quicker and smoother than Yuta. Yuta grabs Taeyong’s hands when the boy is almost at the top at the cliff, helping him the rest of the way up, and when both peer down to check how Taeil is faring, they see he has already called for Mark.

Mark’s way up is just as smooth as theirs, and Taeil proceeds to levitate Doyoung and Haechan the same way. Doyoung lands with a tense smile, relieved at having once again solid, trustworthy land under his feet, and instinctively dashes for the hug Taeyong is offering him.

At the bottom of the cliff Taeil readies himself to send Jungwoo up, watched by the trepidant Haechan and Mark. Yuta seems distracted, smells the air around them, turning to what's behind them. Taeyong and Doyoung mirror him, and equally turn. They landed on what could be the foot of a hill, there is grass everywhere. Even a forest not too far.

"Are you smelling something that bothers you?" Taeyong asks.

Yuta shrugs: "Just new things. Probably some animals in the woods"

"You look worried" Doyoung points out, implicitly demanding an explanation.

Yuta shrugs again, nods in direction of the sky: "I'm afraid we're getting a real storm soon" he answers.

Taeyong and Doyoung follow his gaze. The sky looks threatening, frightening. They share a worried expression, and Taeyong bends over the edge of the cliff, to check on Taeil. The sea too looks worse and worse by the passing of every minute.

Taeil manages to finish sending Jungwoo up to join them, and Yuta drags him to safety with a strong hold on Jungwoo's wrists. The rain intensifies, and the boys start to tremble, exposed even more at the blowing wind now that they're on tip of the cliff rather than at its feet.

"Taeil, any chance you can speed this up?" Taeyong shouts, trying to be heard over the wind.

"Yah, it's more difficult with the wind and the rain!" Taeil protests, struggling to keep Jaehyun steady as he levitates him up. The vampire boy is almost up when Taeil suddenly loses focus.

Jaehyun's eyes widen and he squirms, as if trying to project himself against the rock of the cliff. Taeil shouts, trying to regain the control he's lost, but it's too difficult, Jaehyun much heavier than a pebble.

Haechan screams, covering his mouth, but Yuta and Taeyong are already there, and manage to both catch one of Jaehyun's flailing arm and hauls him to safety.

"Shit" Taeil swears: "Jaehyun, are you okay? I'm so sorry!"

"I'm okay, hyung, no harm done! I shouldn't have tried to move, I'm sorry!" Jaehyun shouts back.

"No, I... I think it's me. It's because I'm getting tired" Taeil admits, and he didn't really need to voice it, everyone can see how tired he looks.

Taeyong and Doyoung share another worried glance, Yuta and Jaehyun whisper hurriedly about the chances they have at climbing the cliff, or using their own powers to help Taeil.

Doyoung frowns. This is not going well.

"I don't think it would help, hyungs" Haechan points out, interrupting Jaehyun and Yuta: "only Taeil and Johnny hyungs are missing. The most sensible thing would be if Taeil could push a little bit more"

"But if he's tired already, he might slip, or let Johnny fall. Johnny is heavier than all of us" Jaehyun replies.

"Haechan is right" Doyoung stops him: "and I am not sure we could intervene. This is Taeil's trial... Let me check, but I am pretty sure we are not allowed to help him"

"Oh, screw the rules" Jungwoo grumbles, then does a double take: "are you sure, hyung?"

"No, that's why I'm checking" Doyoung snarky answers, without lifting his eyes from the papers.

At the bottom of the cliff, Taeil is almost trembling with fatigue, and the rain falls harder, chilling them, making their clothes stick to their skin. Johnny hugs Taeil close, tries to warm him up with a bit of body heat.

"Hyung, listen, If the game is real, and at this point I'd say it's pretty real... then I'm a water spirit, too, right? Like you're an air one"

Taeil makes a soft sound of assent.

"Then, why don't you just fly up yourself. If I'm a water spirit surely the sea won't bother me, not even a stormy one" Johnny suggests.

Taeil shakes his head, meeting Johnny’s eyes with a stubborn look: "No, Johnny, this is my trial, and I have to bring all of you to safety. I'm not risking it. What if for whatever bullshit you can't use your powers. What if for some bullshit you don't have them! No, we are doing this. I won't let you down"

He hesitates, then cracks a smile: "Literally and figuratively"

Johnny snorts, but doesn't push.

"Okay, hyung" he agrees.

Taeil starts levitating Johnny. He looks tired and fatigued and suffering, and the members all try to cheer him and shout his name. But when Johnny is close to the top, Doyoung notices a red rivulet dripping down Taeil's chin, the drops pooling between Taeil's feet.

"Hyung" he calls out, not really sure who he's calling for.

Jaehyun and Yuta have gone silent, their eyes trained on the blood pooling between Taeil's feet and bodies ready to launch themselves back at the bottom of the cliff. But Johnny is almost up, and when Taeil's control fails him, Jaehyun, Yuta and Taeyong hurry to haul Johnny up to safety.

"Johnny hyung!" Mark shouts, hugging him, as if to reassure himself the other hasn't fallen.

"Taeil! Hyung, are you okay?" Taeyong cries, concern clear on his face.

Down, at the bottom of the cliff, Taeil has dropped to his knees and hands. He pushes up, looks up at the rest of the team, blood running freely down his nose and mouth.

The sea looks bad, the storm has started.

"What if I tried to calm the sea? Or Jaehyun, vampires can control storms, right?" Johnny asks, looking frantically now at Taeyong, now at Doyoung.

"Not a good idea" Doyoung replies, waving the booklet of the instructions with a grimace: "here it doesn't say anything specific, but it says that only one of us is allowed to use magic during his trial. I don't know exactly what happens if he don't respect this rule"

"Taeil hyung, can you fly up here?" Haechan shouts.

Taeil snorts, a horribly wet sound, and a red bubble leaves his mouth. He shakes his face and wipes at his mouth and nose with a disgusted expression, then looks up again with a frown.

"Stop looking at me like I'm dead! I was just resting! Now wait for me" he shouts back.

He trembles to stand, and must decide halfway through that that he might as well levitate himself when he's still crouched, so he does just that.

The members cheer loud, louder than the wind and the sea and the storm. They are all drenched by now, hugging each other to try and save some warmth, but it's futile effort.

Halfway up, Taeil's eyes swing closed, and he stops, dangerously close to falling freely way too many meters down and shattering on the rocky terrain under. The members scream, and it seems to help Taeil wake up, regain consciousness.

He makes it to the top, hauled to safety by the hands of his friends, and is lifted into Johnny's strong hold, carried meters away from the edge of the cliff. Jaehyun piles an outer layer of his off his wet skin, uses one of his drenched shirts to shield Taeil from the rain, at least to keep it from hitting him in the face. Johnny sits down on the wet grass, Taeil's body slumped over Johnny's legs, Jaehyun sitting close to them.

The rest of the members pile up near the three boys, only Taeyong standing up, looking at the forest, not too distant, and at the sky. He looks like a drenched cat and is trembling just like any of them. Standing up, he looks even thinner and skinnier than usual. Still, there's a certain aura that makes him glow in an unnatural way, and Doyoung cannot explain the way his own brain is thinking.

The clouds look wither now, less threatening, but it might be just an effect of the light, Doyoung tells himself. At least they aren't stuck at the bottom of a cliff anymore, he muses. He looks around, how pathetic they all look, and reaches for his pocket. He hopes fervently and finds the dice. He bites at his lower lip for a second, then finds enough resolve to roll it.

Five.

"How much, hyung?" Haechan asks, having noticed him.

Doyoung shows him the dice.

"Five?" Jaehyun asks.

"If we were at three before, then it means now we should do what's in slot eight" Mark reasons.

"I wonder how we are supposed to even go at this slot, though" Doyoung asks aloud.

And really, he should have known better. 

Everything fades away.


	4. Dive deeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Water's trial.

When they reappear… wherever they are when they do so, Doyoung feels a bit wary about reopening his eyes. And with good reason. Last time he disappeared from the known world and got popped into a new reality he found himself at the bottom of a cliff, climbing which was impossible and that required one of his members levitating him, and all the others, up over it.

So, yeah. Opening eyes? More dangerous than you would expect.

Still, lying on the floor in the graceless human pile NCT127 currently forms does not sound as appealing as it might. Sure, that helps on the postponing eyes opening as much as possible front, but let’s be honest, Doyoung’s got the tip of a very pointy elbow digging in the middle of his back. A very, very pointy elbows, so skinny and razorblade-like that it can only belong to Taeyong.

Therefore, Doyoung decides to brace himself, take a breath, and stand up. Simultaneously opening his eyes.

It’s… slightly better than last time.

Still no apartment in sight, no dorm, nothing known. But at least there is no cliff, no angry sea threatening to drown them, no dark clouds gathering right over their heads. Actually, the clouds that are, indeed, still currently over their heads look rather docile, white and fluffy, and there is a chilly, yes, but light wind that is blowing them away.

And instead of a scrawny patch of rocks, the sorriest excuse for a beach, they have reappeared on what looks like your typical, very normal, quite safe country road. That as well is quite the improvement, Doyoung thinks.

He looks around, still feeling a bit wobbly on his legs and reaching out with one arm to steady himself. He pats on his clothes to try and get rid of the dirt, but it’s all stuck to the wet fabric, and there is no way he can get it off with just a mild patting. He tries rubbing a spot but then desists, the smudge only fading slightly and actually extending in terms of surface.

He looks around again, taking in their surroundings. His members are slowly standing up as well, Taeyong first, a solid shadow at Doyoung’s back (and yes, that elbow belonged to his best friend and leader, of which Doyoung was quite sure anyway).

“Where the hell…?” Taeyong mumbles, scrunching his face up and turning his head to take in the landscape.

“Are we?” Doyoung completes the question, currently looking back at Taeyong from over his shoulder. Taeyong meets his eyes and Doyoung smiles, the faintest thing, only raising one corner of his mouth, and shrugs.

“That’s a good question” he comments.

“Well, at least there’s no cliff anymore” Haechan muses, patting his clothes in a way similar to what Doyoung’s already attempted to: “imagine if after all that we’d gone back to square one”

“Which was slot three, by the way” Mark comments, helping up Jungwoo and sneaking his way past him and Jaehyun immediately after.

He reaches the front line, taking place Doyoung’s other side, him and Taeyong now bracketing him like bodyguards. The skinniest, less threatening bodyguards you’ve ever seen.

Yuta walks up to the front as well, joining them and then taking a couple of steps beyond what currently represents their exploration line. He plants his feet about two meters in front of Doyoung, and leans over, sniffing the air quietly.

“It’s the same forest from before” he announces.

Haechan frowns, confused: “How would you know?”

“Well, I’m not too sure, this scenting thing is still pretty new but, that forest has the same, identical scent I got from the one over the cliff” Yuta explains, shrugging.

Doyoung ignores Haechan’s snarky reply about different forest smelling differently or all just the same, and turns, suddenly reminded of Taeil, who didn’t look good after completing his trial.

As if reading his mind, Taeyong turns as well, and they find Taeil between Jaehyun and Johnny. They are still physically holding him up, Johnny with an arm sneaked around his middle and Jaehyun with a strong hand fisted in Taeil’s shirt, eyes trained on Taeil’s face.

Taeil looks better. Still exhausted, Doyoung thinks, but at least he’s not bleeding anymore.

Taeyong takes a few quick steps and joins them, reaching out with both hands to touch Taeil’s face. He checks the blood on his face, notices the nosebleed stopped, tries to wipe the dried flakes from his mouth and chin. Taeil protests softly, batting Taeyong’s hand away and repeating that he’s fine.

“I can stand, guys. Seriously, I’m fine”

Taeyong is currently giving Doyoung his back but Doyoung doesn’t need to see his face to know that their leader has one of his eyebrows raised high.

“You still don’t look fine at all, just because you’ve stopped bleeding” he informs the elder.

“But it’s a good sign, the fact that you aren’t bleeding anymore” Jaehyun adds, smiling at Taeil and releasing his hold on Taeil’s shirt.

Johnny releases Taeil from the tight grasp he had on him but doesn’t completely let go, still leaving his arm a little over Taeil’s hips, as if to check that the elder can effectively, really stand by himself. It’s a good thing, because right when Taeil is in the middle of renewing his protests that he can stand up by himself, he sways on his feet, and doesn’t fall only because Johnny is very quick to tighten his hold, again.

“Okay, fine. I am not completely fine, but I am better” Taeil concedes.

Taeyong snorts but doesn’t protest.

“It’s good to see you’re better, hyung” Jungwoo says, smiling sweetly at their eldest. Taeil smiles back, a sweet, calm smile that cannot hide how exhausted Taeil feels.

“So… what’s the plan now?” Johnny asks, eyes on Doyoung: “Is it my turn now?”

“You?” Haechan asks, frowning: “aren’t you the water guy in this game? Where do you even see water around us? It’s all forest and grass. I thought Jungwoo was supposed to do something”

Mark tuts: “That can’t be. We decided the order, remember? After Taeil hyung, it’s Johnny hyung’s turn”

“Yah, and what should he do? Protect from a flood?” Haechan asks sarcastically.

“Don’t give the game any idea, please” Doyoung replies tartly, the tone covering up what actually was intended to be only half a snide remark. The rest was pure pleading – he doesn’t know if the game is a sentient thing, if it can be given ideas, but… he’d still rather not go through a flood, as things are.

He looks around, at the way Yuta is still sniffing at the forest, at the way the wind has all but scattered all the clouds, at the way the sky is clear but also turning orange with the passing of time.

“It must be almost evening” he mumbles, patting the pocket of his pants where he’s stashed the booklet of instructions.

“This is slot eight, right?” he asks, even if he knows well enough.

“Yeah” Taeyong confirms, sliding behind him and peeking at the instructions from over his shoulder. Given that Taeyong is slightly shorter than Doyoung (that’s Taeyong’s opinion, Doyoung thinks their height differs more than just ‘only slightly’ as Taeyong insists), to look at the booklet he almost has to step on his toes.

It’s cute, endearing, and it never fails to make Doyoung feel at least a tiny bit smug.

He reads quickly on the instructions, focusing on the description of the setting. That’s a part he’s happy to find in the instructions for whichever slot they’ve ended up on (okay fine, so far it has only been two, but still), because it’s like a further proof that they’ve landed in the right place. And a fast way to know if there is something they have to pay particular attention to their surroundings.

The booklet doesn’t mention anything threatening from the forest on their West and Southwest (oh, those are West and Southwest? Good to know) or from the plain on their East. In front of them they can distinguish, with a bit of effort, the outline of a city; the effort not because it’s far, but because the sky is getting dark by the minute, which brings Doyoung to question how fast does the time pass in this game.

The instructions inform him that they are supposed to walk the country road they are on, all the way up to the city. He sighs softly, thinking that that sounds good and bad at the same time. A city is less likely to mean death by natural element, but the chances they will have to defend themselves against human threats is considerably higher.

Also, they look like drowned rats, Taeil’s face is still covered in dried blood, even after Taeyong’s attempts at clean up. The city itself doesn’t look near, and the sun is going down fast. If it’s evening now, Doyoung judges they won’t make it to the city before full evening. They have a long way to walk, they can’t afford to waste any, and Taeil will need to be carried.

And once they get to the city, what will they do? The wind isn’t strong, but it’s chilly enough, especially for their wet clothes. They will need dry ones, but to buy new ones they will need money, and he’s pretty sure if any of the members has any in their pockets from the other world, it won’t work here.

Doyoung is taken from his mulling by the sudden realization that, if that is a city…

He scrolls a few pages backwards and yes, there it is.

“The aim of the game is to finish the game, but also to save the kingdom” he reads aloud.

He feels the questioning looks of his other members and raises his head to meet their eyes.

“For Johnny’s trial we need to get to the city. Which is good because we can figure out how to get dry clothes and maybe some food. Though, don’t ask me how, because I have no idea”

Haechan snorts: “Don’t worry hyung, I guess I can get us some money wherever we end up”

“Or maybe that will be my trial?” Johnny hypothesizes, smiling: “will I find a chest of gold at the bottom of a pond?”

“Actually, you’re close” Doyoung replies: “here it says, and it doesn’t really mention why, or what for, but. We need to reach that city, and once we are there, we need to find the prisons. Looks like right under those there is a magic lake, and inside the lake there is a key”

“… I was kidding” Johnny murmurs, with a blank stare.

“Well, I am not, and neither is the game” Doyoung shrugs.

“What is the key for?” Taeyong asks.

“I don’t know. Here it literally says that we will find out later” Doyoung replies, showing him the booklet.

“But that’s hardly enough information” Haechan whines: “why can’t the game tell us now what’s the key for?”

“Maybe we will find out something more once we are in the city” Yuta suggests.

“Yeah, maybe we can talk to the people there, see if we can get them to tell us something useful” Jaehyun nods in agreement.

“Well, in any case, we’d better get going, the sun is going down really fast. I don’t know how much we have before sunset” Taeyong decides, clapping his hands together and looking at the red sky with a considerate expression.

“And you said we can get food once we’re there, right?” Jungwoo asks, smiling with an expression full of hope.

“Hyung, how will we pay for food?” Haechan asks.

“Didn’t you say you could get us money wherever we’d go?” Jaehyun teases him.

“Yes, I mean, with my brilliant siren powers, I guess. But now that I think about it, I don’t know if I can use my power when it’s Johnny hyung’s turn” he replies.

Doyoung frowns, consults the instructions in silence, feeling all eyes on him.

“I think that, as long as you’re not meddling with someone’s trial, you can use your powers” he declares.

“Well, that’s good” Haechan nods, pursing his lips together and then smiling: “I’d love to try them out”

“Well, I don’t, but, if it helps the team…” Taeyong agrees.

“Oh, Taeyong hyung! Are you going to seduce someone for money?” Jungwoo gasps with faked innocence.

“I’m not a whore, Jungwoo” Taeyong grumbles, and briskly walks to Taeil.

The eldest insists he can walk just fine, but Taeyong and Johnny ignore him, and start a discussion on how sensible it is that Taeyong helps Taeil or that Johnny does.

“Hyung, no offence, but Johnny’s bigger. He should do it” Jaehyun sides with Johnny, throwing a careful look Taeyong’s way.

“So what? Jung Jaehyun, I’ll have you know that in this game I’m as strong as you are. And stronger than Johnny” Taeyong protests, pouting and this close to crossing his arms on his chest: “And Johnny’s too tall for Taeil hyung, anyway” he insists.

“Taeil hyung, please let him help you. We need to set off right now” Doyoung intervenes, pleading eyes looking at Taeil.

Johnny shrugs and lets Taeil go but refuses to leave Taeil’s other side. Taeil’s protests that he can walk just fine are ignored from all sides, and the group starts walking along the country road.

“I still think that Doyoung hyung should have given us more information” Haechan grumbles.

“Excuse me, the instructions don’t say a thing! And I can’t know which slots we could possibly end up on in the next round. What if the meaning of this key changes according to which slots we have to go through?” Doyoung replies.

“Oh, hyung, can’t you see it? Don’t you have, like, visions? Feelings? Aren’t you supposed to be a seer?”

Doyoung glares at their maknae: “Okay, first of all, I’m not a seer yet. And second of all, you be the seer next time!”

“How about there won’t be a next time, uh” Taeyong steps in, throwing both contestants a meaningful look.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m actually having fun, up to now” Yuta replies, beaming.

“Yeah, me too” Jaehyun grins back. His upper lip curls and shows the tips of his teeth. And not his front ones. His canines.

Doyoung, having noticed by coincidence, suddenly cannot look away. Jaehyun has always had nice teeth, even and sparkling white. Now though, the tips of his canines seem to have been elongated in a rather eerie way.

Jaehyun catches him looking and smirks, curling his upper lip even further and showing more teeth. His eyes flash, the irises coloring up from their solid color to a metallic hue of gold, his pupils thinning in the middle. The tips of his canines now rest on the plump bottom lip, looking deadly and threatening.

“Oh, stop it Jaehyun” Taeyong grumbles from behind Doyoung, frozen solid where he’s looking at Jaehyun’s mouth, and Jaehyun, smirking devilishly at him.

“But Doyoung really looks like a rabbit now, doesn’t he?” Taeil asks, tilting his head over Taeyong’s shoulder.

Taeyong, to his credit, hesitates, then sighs, makes eye contact with Doyoung and nods.

“With that expression, he sure does”

Doyoung blushes and resumes walking, suddenly finding the dirt on the road much more interesting than Jaehyun’s supernaturally elongated teeth.

Fangs, his mind supplies.

Whatever.

Jaehyun chuckles, still walking at his side, and pats him affectionately on the back. Doyoung ignores the way his own cheeks are still in flame and tries to smile back.

“Oh, cool, hyung! Show me?” Haechan asks.

Jaehyun complies and basks in the attention both him and Mark invest in his freshly discovered, longer teeth – fangs, Doyoung tells himself, those are fangs. From where he’s walking a few meters ahead Yuta scoffs, and turns flashing his own sets of metallic hued, golden colored irises, pupils still rounded, but with fangs that look bigger and thicker.

“Cool!!” Mark and Haechan exclaim, rushing to Yuta and dragging Jaehyun with them by the wrist. They insist that both Yuta and Jaehyun walk with their fangs flashed out, and mouths opened, so they can continue their fangs-watching without falling behind.

Doyoung catches the way Taeyong shakes his head. Him and Taeil have now joined him, and only Johnny is taking up the rear, still careful to catch any sign of Taeil needing help, or Taeyong tiring out. Though, to his credit, Taeyong doesn’t even look like his body has registered the extra weight he’s partly carrying, the way he’s supporting more than half Taeil’s bodyweight.

“What’s wrong?” Doyoung asks.

Taeyong shakes his head again, his mouth a thin line.

“I don’t think suddenly sporting a set of fangs sound as good as our maknaes seem to think” he carefully answers: “given that those teeth could hurt people”

“Actually” Johnny pipes up from behind them, startling Taeil for the briefest moment: “those things will hurt people. For sure. Make that a certain tense. Jaehyun and Yuta are going to have to use their fangs. Remember what the game says? If you pick their characters, you’re going to have to use the strength you’re given, and the catch is, you’ve got to feed. Like the monster you choose”

An awkward silence follows. It’s impossible not to notice the way Taeyong’s back has gone a rigid, tense line.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry Yong, I didn’t mean…” Johnny apologizes, blushing and cutting off his own words. He sighs and offers a comforting pat on Taeyong’s shoulder, empty of Taeil.

“It’s fine” Taeyong replies, tersely. Nobody needs superpowers to know he’s lying.

“I just have to figure out how to feed without killing people, I guess” he adds, as an afterthought.

“I mean, maybe you’ll like it” Doyoung hypothesizes.

The way Taeyong glares at him, looking as incredulous as he is shocked, is enough of an indication for Doyoung that he’d better rush to apologize, and he does just that.

“Sorry, sorry. Shutting up now” he says, and mimics zipping up his mouth and throwing away the key.

Taeyong snorts and looks down for a while. Then he shrugs.

“I mean, maybe you’re right. Maybe it won’t be too bad” he concedes.

“To be complete honest, my beloved Taeyong, my esteemed leader” Taeil starts dramatically, placing the palm of a hand on his chest: “I believe that between the three of you, you’ve got way higher probabilities to enjoy this feeding experience than those two. Even if you don’t have fangs”

“Who says I don’t?” Taeyong replies with a sly expression, the faintest smirk on his lips, flashing Taeil a suddenly very sensual look under hooded eyes.

The white tips of his canines almost prickling at the plump flesh of his bottom lip.

“What the fuck?!” Doyoung shrieks, reaching out to grab Taeyong’s chin.

Taeyong shoulders his hand away, bursting out in a loud laugh, the sensual look dissolved from his face. He dodges Taeil’s attempts at grabbing his face too, but somehow cannot escape from Johnny, who ends up turning his face enough and staring down at the tips of Taeyong’s fangs, still peeking out from under his upper lip.

“Show me?” Johnny asks, curious, sure, but with eyes too focused on Taeyong’s lips and pupils dilating too much by the minute to be just curious. He cradles Taeyong’s face in both his hands, forcing Taeyong and therefore, Taeil, to stop.

Taeyong, lips still parted, closes his mouth just a second to swallow nervously, then curls his upper lip in a slow, unintentionally sensual way, revealing a very threatening-looking pair of elongated, white canines.

“I thought incubus fed on lifeforce only?” Doyoung asks quietly, frowning at the way Johnny’s eyes have suddenly gone really, really dark, and they seem to have a hard time leaving Taeyong’s face, lips and fangs especially.

“Well, in the lore incubus are very, very similar to vampires” Mark intervenes, and Doyoung almost startles, noticing only then that their entire group has stopped, and everyone is looking at the way Johnny is cradling Taeyong’s face in his hands.

“It never says they can only feed on lifeforce. Maybe they can go the vampire way, too” Mark continues.

Ignoring him, or maybe prompted by Mark’s words, Jaehyun moves silently until he’s reached the pair. He gently takes Taeyong’s chin from Johnny’s hands, Johnny’s arms falling aimlessly along his hips, but his eyes staying just as dark, pinned now on Jaehyun, now on Taeyong.

Jaehyun smiles at Taeyong, with eyes equally hooded, sensual and devilish, showing only the tips of his teeth – fangs. Taeyong meets his stare, the faintest red dusting his cheeks at first, his eyes suddenly going glassy from under his lashes, his lips still parted. Then slowly, oh so slowly those lips part even more, opening into the smallest, most sensual ‘o’ shape the world has ever seen, and Taeyong’s eyes sparkle from under his lashes. The corner of his mouth quirks up, and suddenly it’s Jaehyun, the hand still holding Taeyong’s mouth, that slowly parts his lips and whose eyes turn glassy and colors more, turning superhumanly hard and golden, pupils slit, and he takes the smallest step closer, until he’s so close to Taeyong’s open, inviting lips…

“Hyung!” Doyoung shouts, alarmed, snapping the tension and attracting everyone’s attention. Jaehyun struggles to look away from Taeyong’s mouth but still, he manages to do so, and when he looks Doyoung’s way, he’s panting slightly.

Taeyong beats his lashes and in a second the sensual look is gone, the fangs have disappeared, and his smile is his usual bratty and challenging one. He shrugs and beams at Jaehyun.

“I guess I’m stronger than you, uh, Jaehyunnie?” he gloats.

“Shit, hyung…” Mark swears softly.

“That was hot” Haechan continues, nodding vigorously: “like, eerie and creepy and disturbing, but also very, very hot”

“I told you you’d be perfect for this role, hyung” Jungwoo tells Taeyong, patting his shoulder.

Taeyong replies something, laughing – Doyoung himself is smiling, happy to see that the tension has been diffused and everyone is back to normal… but… the sounds… are faint, as if coming from far, far away… or… underwater?

Everything around him suddenly turns pale, the colors fade out, and his vision tunnels until he only sees a vast sea of black, a floating, cold darkness, and in front of him, like under a spotlight on a stage, crystal clear water and a golden key.

He reaches out with his hand, tries to touch it, but suddenly feels like he’s choking, and his sight fails him, everything turns black. He blinks his eyes furiously, tries to snap out of whatever happened, and the next moment his senses are assaulted by reality, rushing back in like a train, all the sounds, all the colors, the people around him.

“Doyoung, Doyoung!”

Taeyong is calling him, voice laced with worry and holding him in his arms.

Doyoung blinks, realizes he’s in Taeyong’s arms, and if it wasn’t for him holding him up, he’d be on the floor. Johnny is helping Taeil stand, and everyone is looking at him with concerned eyes, but what strikes him the most is the way Taeyong’s very human pupils are dilated with childish fear.

“Are you okay? Can you hear me now?” Taeyong asks, hesitant, eyes roaming all over Doyoung’s face.

Doyoung nods a couple of times, still dizzy, and lets Taeyong help him straighten up, leans his forehead against Taeyong’s shoulder, rests there for a few seconds after.

“I saw the key” he says, after a while, finally able to stand up by himself, and looking around for Johnny: “I saw the key. It really is at the bottom of a lake. And you won’t like swimming in there, because it’s going to be cold as fuck” he announces.

Johnny sighs and shrugs: “Whatever. It could be worse I guess”

“Yeah. It could be an enchanted lake where everyone who dives in falls asleep while they’re still swimming. So… you’re going to have a lot of company. In terms of dead bodies floating on the surface of the lake”

Silence.

Johnny blinks once, then a second time, and then: “What?!”

Doyoung snorts: “I mean. Sorry. I didn’t want to say it like this, but. Yeah. That’s still true”

Haechan scoffs: “So, first you tell us you don’t have visions, and then you clearly have one?”

“I didn’t know I could have those!” Doyoung protests.

“Chill, both of you” Taeyong intervenes. Haechan looks at him, and Doyoung feels a pang in his chest when he realizes the expression in Haechan’s eyes is worry.

He was worried for him.

“Uhm. Sorry” he murmurs. Too low for anyone to hear, but Haechan catches it, and smiles the tiniest bit.

“I’m just happy you woke up” he whispers back.

Doyoung pulls his lips in a thin line. He shares the feeling about that.

“Wait. If it’s an enchanted lake, even Johnny might drown in it” Jaehyun reasons: “what if he falls asleep as everyone else?”

“Maybe the fact that he’s a water spirit will protect him?” Jungwoo hypothesizes.

“I’m a water spirit, I don’t think I will drown” Johnny argues, frowning with discomfort.

Doyoung chews on his bottom lip, ignoring the way he feels eyes on him.

“I don’t know. I think you’re right, and you won’t have problems. But. I don’t know for sure”

“This doesn’t sound good” Taeyong grumbles: “we don’t know exactly where to find the lake, for starters. We don’t know if it’s going to be a guarded lake or not. We don’t even know if Johnny we’ll make it out”

“That’s being negative for sure” Johnny chirps, smiling sarcastically.

“Guys, guys!” Mark shouts, attracting everyone’s attention: “Look. All of you are right. But we can’t know shit for sure. Let’s just take baby steps, uh? Let’s start getting to the city. We can figure out the rest later” he declares, throwing pleading eyes at Taeyong.

The leader pulls his lips together, then shrugs and nods: “You’re right. We’re just wasting time now. Doie, do you feel okay now? Can you walk?”

Doyoung nods, assuring them he can walk just fine. He tries to ignore and not to protest too much at the way Jaehyun looms behind him, as if ready to catch him at the first sign of weakness Doyoung will show.

The city looks closer, for sure. But the sky has turned a darker shade of red, and has started setting on the horizon.

-o-

When they make it to the city the sun is all gone. Still, the twilight sky lets them distinguish the giant wall surrounding the city, tall and majestic. There is a door, a big opening in the wall, an iron gate raised to let the last people in. Armed sentinels are all around the place, some guarding the opened door and gate, some walking the top of the wall.

“It looks like straight out of a movie” Jungwoo murmurs.

“Everyone is looking at us weird” Yuta notices, and nervously lowers his human eyes.

“I guess we stand out too much with these clothes” Jaehyun reasons, grimacing.

“We stand out like a sore thumb” Haechan agrees, nodding briskly.

They sneak in and away from the gate as fast as they can, but they’re a rather big group and with their modern clothes they really attract a lot of attention. Luckily, the darkness falling covers them and they find a safe nook in which to regroup.

“Okay, we need camouflaging” Taeyong declares: “we need to get out of our clothes and into something like what people are wearing”

The way his lips pull down in distaste is pretty funny, Doyoung thinks, and he almost joins in the laughing that follows.

“I think this is your chance, guys. Those of us who can charm people should do so. Haechan? It’s your moment” he suggests.

“My time to shine!” Haechan exclaims, beaming.

“I’ll come with you” Taeyong offers, with his bravest expression on.

“Me too” Jaehyun says.

“You guys should split” Doyoung continues: “you’ll attract less attention. And go only where we can still see you”

He gestures at the big square between their shelter and the entrance gate. It’s a wide, open space, still full of stands nearby some shops, most of those still full of the last patrons despite the relatively late hour.

“If we could roam the city entirely, we would have more chances to find what we need” Yuta points out.

“Yes, but they’ll be alone, what if they’re in danger?” Doyoung replies, frowning in distress. On a rational level, he agrees, they need to leave the entrance gate as soon as possible, and move to a less populated area of the city. But at the same time, they cannot move from their hiding place without the camouflage they need, and he doesn’t like the idea of letting Haechan, Taeyong and Jaehyun out of his sight.

“We could all split?” Johnny suggests.

“No” Taeyong refuses, in a way that doesn’t allow for different opinions: “No, you are staying here. If we get caught, we can get out of any situation. But not if we have to get someone else out along us. You’re staying here. You’ll have to trust us. We can do this”

“We can take this as a tryout to learn to use our powers” Haechan adds, nodding with a tranquil expression and smiling in a way that’s supposed to be reassuring.

“And anyway, it’s getting dark now. The three of us will stand out less than before” Jaehyun offers.

“I still don’t like splitting up” Doyoung admits.

Taeyong lifts an eyebrow, but Doyoung precedes him, waving him off: “Yes, I am the one who suggested it, I know. Still”

“Don’t worry, hyung. We’ll be fine” Haechan promises.

Doyoung swallows and doesn’t protest anymore. He’d like to say he has a feeling, a hunch, anything, justifying his worrying but he really doesn’t. This is just good, old, familiar anxiety at the unknown.

He watches them walking away, each taking a different route, disappearing either in the crowd or in the shadows. The rest of them can’t do anything but wait. Taeil slides on the floor, resting his back against the solid wall of the building that is partly sheltering them.

“I hope they’ll be alright” Doyoung murmurs.

“Don’t worry, Doyoung. I’m still tracking them” Yuta tells him, soothing.

“Yes, Were-Yuta will know where they are, hyung” Jungwoo adds, beaming.

Doyoung smiles at them both, appreciating their attempt at calming him. And maybe not only him. He notices the way Johnny slides close to Taeil, their hands reaching out and intertwining fingers, holding onto the other. Doyoung swallows nervously, realizing he’s not the only one worrying for the three missing members.

Mark delicately wraps his arms around him, and Doyoung lets himself be hugged.

The first to come back after only ten minutes is Jaehyun.

He’s carrying a big sack on his back and looks remotely like some twisted, modern version of Santa Claus.

Only, instead of presents, he’s carrying a sack full of…

“I’ve got us shoes!” he announces, beaming with pride and so obviously satisfied with himself.

“Shoes?” Jungwoo repeats, frowning: “Wasn’t it more important to get us clothes?”

“Haechannie said he’ll get those. We divided things, it made more sense this way. Here, I made sure there’s a pair for each of you. Can’t go around with vans under medieval clothes, right?”

“But these are all boots”

“Yeah, so?”

“They’re going to be uncomfortable” Doyoung answers, lips pulled in a thin line.

Jaehyun freezes in his act of distributing his presents and scowls at him.

“But this doesn’t mean that I am any less grateful to you, Jaehyunnie!” Doyoung rushes to add, beaming.

Jaehyun snorts, ignoring the way the rest of the members laugh.

It’s not much later after that that Haechan comes back as well, carrying two big bags and revealing a third one tied to his back. He unloads his burden with a dramatic huff and a very satisfied expression.

“I am so good at this! Hyungs, check these out”

He opens the bags and unwraps the bundle that he was carrying on his back, proceeding to assign each of them several articles of clothing. Apparently, he’s already planned an entire set of outfits for each of them, as they find out when they try to take things by themselves and he stops them.

“No, Mark, you’re getting this. Give that to Taeil hyung. This is for Jungwoo hyung. Johnny hyung, I hope these fit, I swear I tried my best…”

“But where have you found all these clothes? Have you robbed a clothes shop?” Doyoung asks, astonished at the number of items Haechan is handing out, or piling up for himself and Taeyong.

He smiles at them in a way that cannot show fangs, as he doesn’t have any, but, if he had, then Doyoung has the feeling they’d be seeing all of them right now.

“I walked into a group of nuns” he replies, smirking like a little devil, his face the epitome of smug complacency.

“Haechan!” Mark exclaims, shocked: “you didn’t!”

“Ya, I didn’t do anything bad! I just asked really politely if they could buy clothes for me and my friends” he explains in a defensive tone.

The members laugh, putting on their new clothes, Mark shaking his head.

“I don’t even know how to tie this thing…” Doyoung mutters, struggling with the strings of his undershirt.

“Here, Doyoung, turn around, I’ll do it up for you” Johnny offers, quick fingers fastening his shirt from the back.

“Taeyong hyung hasn’t come back yet?” Haechan asks once he’s done handing out items and has started putting on his own.

“Not yet” Yuta confirms.

“Maybe he’s stopped for a snack” Jaehyun smirks, wiggling his eyebrows.

Haechan snorts and hides his mirth in the layers he’s putting on.

Doyoung glares at both of them, feeling guilty for how he can’t help but worry.

-o-

Fun fact: you know when the members have all but insisted to give him the incubus role, and Taeyong has sort of played dumb and pretended he didn’t know anything about what an Incubus is or does? Well. He lied. Sort of.

Partly lied, at least. Which explains why the members believed him – he is a fairly good actor, but a terrible liar, especially around people who know him, and know him well like his members.

The thing is: you don’t read all the shit Taeyong reads, play that many games, watch those many animes and dramas and movies without getting to know a little bit how the supernatural world is sort of supposed to work. The international one at least – of course he knows shit about specific country lore. Like, he knows in general how vampires or werewolves’ biologies are supposed to work – if one can even use the terms, and the same applies for some of the most known creatures that appear in more lore, notwithstanding the countries you’re in.

So, to make it short – he might know jack shit about, say, creature existing in the specifically Italian, or Polish, or Finnish lore only. But everything else, whether it’s because he’s had his BTVS phase or because he just picked it up from the internet, he sort of knows.

And. He knew incubus were sexual creatures. That’s exactly why he wasn’t that keen on taking up on the role.

Don’t get him wrong, he is a young man past teen age (okay fine, he is in his late twenties already but whatever), so of course he doesn’t dislike the idea of sex. He’s neither ace not demi. He’s very, very much into sex. Doesn’t really mind the gender of his partner either (especially as long as they can take on a dominant role… but that’s digressing).

The thing is. Incubus, or succubus, are supposed to feed on lifeforce. Through sex, yes, true, but still. Lifeforce.

Taeyong is terrified at the idea of accidentally killing someone.

Even worse, Taeyong is actually scared shitless at the idea of killing someone while he’s too caught up in the act of actually doing the killing, sucking the lifeforce out of the person he’s feeding from.

And he is supposed to feed at least once in this cursed game. Presumably, it will be his trial, he personally bets with himself. Which might imply, if he is correct, that he will feed… in front of the rest of his members.

Now. Taeyong is a superstar, yes, but he isn’t that big on exhibitionism. He doesn’t really look forward to the idea of, say, Doyoung, or Johnny, or Haechan watching him grind on an innocent human being and sucking the life out of them – and, by the way, he’s not too sure about the dynamics of that. How is that process supposed to go down, is he going to have to kiss his (brace yourself for the word, Taeyong, because there is no other way to call them) victims? Is he going to have to suck their lifeforce from their mouth?

Does this make him, at least in the game, a soul-sucking monster?

Yeah, you could say he’s worried a bit.

Then again, the fact that he is so caught up in his own mind doesn’t really hurt, given that it helps him distract his mind from the odd looks his modern attire are getting him from the people of the city.

He sighs, cards his fingers through his hair and struggles to push that all aside, focusing once again on the task at hand. He’s postponed it enough, roamed aimlessly the city long enough and now should really find the warm layers he’s promised Jaehyun and Haechan he would find for them all, and get back.

He’s walked without really following a direction and has turned up into a rather less populated area of the city, at least compared to the big, giant square right in front of the gate. Given that the square probably is one of the main attraction points of the town, it is hardly a surprise that Taeyong finds less people in here.

This square is considerable smaller, only one door still open, looking like it could be a shop. Two guards leave from the open door right when Taeyong slithers into one of the nooks close to the shop, and walks holding something folded and fabric looking.

A man exits the shop, looking middle-aged and dressed as a soldier. His uniform is in much better shape than the two guys who just left though, and he might be higher ranked, too. Or maybe he simply has a different task, one that does not require for him to get as dirty as the other too.

That is when Taeyong notices that the man is closing up the shop, carefully placing the door shut and sneaking a heavy-looking key in the hole.

‘Time to sneak in’ Taeyong thinks, and pushes himself from the wall, walking straight to the guy.

The man turns, having just locked up the shop that Taeyong guesses it probably is a clothing store for the city soldiers, and slides the key in one of the front pockets of the jacket of his uniform. He keeps his eyes trained on the ground as he spins around and makes to leave, seeming to be lost in thoughts, and Taeyong walks right in front of him, forcing him to stop and look up.

Taeyong is careful to keep the fangs at bay, deciding that in no way he’s going to have to put them to use, and smiles as innocently and childlike as he can. He even laces his hands behind his back, tilts his head to the side, beats his lashes a couple of times.

“Hi” he greets the officer.

The man blinks once, twice, holding Taeyong’s eyes. He can’t be older than forty years old, and he’s got the lean but strong build of a man used to keep in shape. His face looks kind and friendly.

And his eyes have started turning glassy, which is all Taeyong needs to see, to know that the man has fallen under his spell.

He’s not too sure this is a good thing.

Taeyong’s throat suddenly feels drier, and he swallows nervously, struggling to keep his beaming smile in place.

“Hello” the man greets back politely.

His voice is warm and deep, but he sounds off, as if he weren’t really there.

Taeyong mentally scolds himself for going full force on an innocent man that he cannot feed on, anyway.

Immediately after, something in the back of his mind stirs. A new hunger, something that he’s not familiar with. Something he might, maybe, have felt under Jaehyun’s gaze, when he was trying to lure him under his spell rather than fall for Jaehyun’s own.

Only, this is stronger, and feels darker. More dangerous. Like jumping with no safety net under him.

He swallows again.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I was looking for warm clothes for me and my friends, and I was wondering if you could help me” Taeyong smoothly says, keeping his eyes pinned in the man’s ones.

The man pales, then his cheeks redden, and his pupils dilate. His eyes focus on Taeyong’s mouth and seem unable to look away.

The hunger, in the back of Taeyong’s mind, suddenly becomes tempting, and forms a thought: why not? Why not try? What if he likes it?

Taeyong swallows again, trying to ignore the sudden turn his mind is taking, and smiles more.

“I… I can help you, sure” the man answers, his hand quickly slipping in the pocket where he’s stashed the key. He doesn’t turn, fumbling blindly to find the keyhole while his eyes are still pinned on Taeyong’s face.

Taeyong smiles sweetly now: “Maybe you should look what you’re doing” he suggests.

The man blushes and promptly follows the suggestion, as if it’d been an order. Taeyong frowns at that docility.

The man pushes the door open and gestures Taeyong in, holding the door open for him. Taeyong steps into the shop, looking around. There are several chests and wardrobes, all with a small tag on their front.

The man points him to one of the chests.

“Here I have the warmest coats. The guards use them in the winter, but they might be too warm for now. I could give you these ones” he continues, opening a wardrobe: “these are better for this weather. How many do you need?”

He turns to look at Taeyong, pending from his lips.

Taeyong swallows again.

“Nine” he answers.

The man quickly piles nine of the best-looking coats on the table and brings up a bag.

“Do you have something to carry them?”

Taeyong shakes his head no, and the man immediately puts them in the bag, with care.

The man hands him the bag, and Taeyong takes it. Their fingers touch, which, Taeyong is sure, was completely by mistake.

The hunger feels stronger now, and he takes a small step closer to the solider, rooted in his spot.

Taeyong desperately tries to think about anything that is not the way this man smells, the good scent that he doesn’t even know how to describe, if not with words that are all eerie synonyms of, ‘alive’.

He is not going to kill a man. He is not going to feed on a man.

The man takes a step closer to Taeyong and ends up right against the younger. His hands sneak around Taeyong’s torso, taking firm, strong hold of Taeyong’s hips and pressing the boy against his own chest. He tilts his head down, bending so close to Taeyong’s face. Taeyong shakes his head no imperceptibly, and the man stops.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” the man asks, his eyes glassy and pupils so dilated the irises is all but gone.

Taeyong nods.

“What can I do for you? Tell me. I’d do anything” the man swears.

Taeyong feels something tickling in the back of his head, and he’s not sure if it’s his conscience or this new, freshly discovered hunger, growing so strong, and that he has no idea how to handle.

He needs to ask the man something. Buy him time, get himself back on track, smother this impossibly strong urge down, control it.

“… I need to know where a magic lake is. With a key inside” Taeyong whispers.

The man hums and smiles happily: “That’s easy. It’s under the prisons. You can walk in easily, with those coats”

“Because they belong to the guards?” Taeyong guesses.

The man nods. His eyes never sway from Taeyong’s mouth.

Taeyong parts his lips, and the man opens his own just as slightly, like a doll, a puppet.

The game… Taeyong starts to find it really, really enticing.

“Which building?” he asks: “where do I find the prisons?”

The man describes one of the biggest ones close to the spot where Taeyong knows his members are currently hiding, at least if they haven’t moved from where they were when he’s left them.

“And the prisons are...?” he continues.

“Right at the bottom” The man replies, and then provides Taeyong with a detailed explanation on how to get there.

Taeyong smiles.

This is… actually pretty fun.

And the man smells good. He probably shouldn’t know that, probably shouldn’t give in to the tentation of taking a good sniff but, this is pretty harmless, isn’t it?

Taeyong leans closer, hooded eyes looking up at the man from under his lashes.

“And what is the key for?” he asks.

The man swallows but doesn’t seem to realize. Beads of sweat start to appear on his forehead, and he looks dizzy. Taeyong brings up his own hands and sneaks them around the man’s torso, steadying him.

“What does the key do?” he asks again.

“It opens a door” the man replies.

Taeyong chuckles: “Clearly. Tell me more. Which door?” he insists.

The man nods: “The door of a room. A room in a castle”

“Which castle?” Taeyong pushes more.

“The one where we’ve locked in the princess” the man answers.

Taeyong lifts an eyebrow: “Really? A princess? Why?”

“She was the true ruler of this city. But she wasn’t worthy. The council dethroned her” the man replies.

His face twists up in a pained expression and he leans closer to Taeyong.

“Please” he whispers, softly, so softly, voice broken, sounding close to sobbing: “please, I’ve been good, I’ve told you everything, please…”

Taeyong pushes him away, pressing the palms of both hands on the man’s chest and pushing him away with all his strength, before he gives in to his own, most animalistic, new self and ends up hurting or killing this innocent man.

Unfortunately, because he has turned superhuman now, he is a little bit stronger than he remembered, and sends the man hurling into the opposite wall, slamming his head so hard on it that he’s out cold, on the floor.

Taeyong swears and rushes to the man’s side, checking his breath and pulse. It looks like the guy is still alive, and, he hopes, will only have a bump on the back of his head.

He hopes so.

Bordering on panic, Taeyong grabs the bag with the coats and sprints pout of the shop, down the alleys until he’s back to his members. When he stops, his breath is short and he’s red-faced, but he’s got the feeling it’s not because of the run.

“What the fuck has happened to you?” Johnny frowns, noticing his expression.

“Why did you take so long?” Doyoung adds, nervous and worried eyes scanning Taeyong’s face.

“Hyung, are you okay?” someone, Mark or Haechan, or both, wants to know.

Taeyong ignores the questions, dodging Doyoung’s fretting hands and pushing the bag straight into Jaehyun’s chest. His jaw hurts for the way he’s still grinding his teeth together, to keep his mouth shut. He can feel his fangs throbs in his gums, as if his body didn’t know if it should unsheathe them or not.

“Here, I found coats. They are actually the same the guards use, so we can sneak in the prison building with no effort” he replies, in lieu of answer to all those questions, and points with his finger in direction of the bag Jaehyun is opening.

“…Where did you take these?” Haechan asks, lifting a suspicious eyebrow.

Taeyong swallows and shrugs: “Just got lucky, found a guy who was working at a convenient place”

“Uhu” Johnny muses, sarcastic: “and, who did get lucky, you or him?”

Taeyong frowns, confused.

“Hyung, what did you do to the guy?” Mark asks explicitly, expression wary.

“I… Nothing” Taeyong stammers, and blushes.

“Hyung, is he still alive?” Haechan asks, straightforward and worried.

“Taeyong, what have you done?” Doyoung demands to know, face full of concern, mostly for Taeyong’s wellbeing.

He gets past Taeyong’s attempts at dodging his own prodding hands, and when he finally manages to land them on Taeyong’s arms the elder jumps, then trembles, then sighs, as if whatever took over him suddenly left him. Taeyong closes his eyes and falls into Doyoung’s open arms, hugging back when they enclose him in a tight embrace.

“I didn’t do anything. But got a bit too close. But at least I got answers” he murmurs, his mouth almost glued to the skin of Doyoung’s throat.

Doyoung’s familiar scent roots him, and grounds him, telling him he’s safe. Telling him he can be in charge of his own mental faculties. Telling him there is no hunger now, telling him he is with friends, and that he can trust himself.

He peeks from under his bangs, looking straight up into Doyoung’s eyes. It feels weirdly intimate, to do so, to look up at Doyoung from where he’s snuggled in the crook of his neck.

“I know what the key is for” he announces.

“What!” Mark exclaims, excited.

Taeyong nods. Doyoung’s eyes look back questioning, and many members vocalize the same request.

“Tell us, hyung”

“What do you mean, hyung?”

“Yong, please start from the beginning”

Taeyong quickly tells them what he found out from the man’s delirious speech. He trusts the words to be true, even if the man had been in a rather intoxicated state when he’s shared them with Taeyong.

Taeil hands out coat to everyone as Taeyong speaks, gets rid of the bag right after.

“So… we’ve got to sneak in the prisons. Oh, why couldn’t it be the kitchen…” Jungwoo complains.

Taeyong snorts, and his stomach trembles and growls loudly: “Yeah, to be honest, I’m hungry too…”

“Really?” Johnny drawls, lifting an eyebrow, now less skeptical and more amused.

Taeyong blushes and pretends he manages to ignore him.

“I’ve said I didn’t feed, didn’t I?” he replies, tersely.

“You’ve said you got a bit too close, whatever that means” Johnny retorts, lifting his other eyebrow too and pinning Taeyong with a very pointed look.

“Doyoung, what do you think about this story?” Yuta asks, his entire attention on Doyoung, noticing the way he’s lost in thoughts.

“I think this can’t be a coincidence. It’s pretty obvious this castle, or this princess, they play a role in what we are supposed to do. Maybe we have to talk with her? Maybe we have to save her. Taeyong says she was the true ruler of the city and got dethroned, right?”

Taeyong nods. Those had been the man’s words, at least.

“Well” Haechan exclaims, clapping his hands and attracting everyone’s attention. Taeyong and Doyoung actually startle at the sudden, relatively loud sound.

“I say we start with first things first” the maknae continues, looking at his hyungs in a rather pointed way: “and by that I don’t mean getting to the lake so Johnny hyung can do his trial. I mean, food”

“Never have I heard wiser words!” Jungwoo exclaims, nodding vigorously with the most joyful expression.

Doyoung snorts. Taeyong smiles sheepishly and takes a step back, ending their impromptu snuggling session, and looks away.

“I wonder if I can eat normal food. I’m starting to get hungry, too…” Jaehyun muses, caressing his chin.

“Yah, I hope we can. Or, I hope I can! I’m not going to survive on people’s lifeforce until we’re back” Taeyong declares, widening his eyes in a rather alarmed way.

“I think we should actually hurry with this trial” Doyoung protests: “do it as soon as we can. We’ve got to do something pretty illegal, for the standards of the city, so, the sooner we leave the city, the better it’ll be” he reasons.

“You are right” Johnny concedes, smiling his usual, charming way, head tilted to the side: “But I’m actually pretty hungry too, and we don’t even know when we will have another chance to get food”

“Also true” Doyoung admits, shrugging.

“Never fear, my hyungs. Stay here. I’ll get us something to eat” Haechan declares in a dramatically emphatic way.

“I’ll come with you” Jaehyun pipes up, and makes to join their youngest member, but Haechan tuts and shakes his finger straight up in Jaehyun’s face.

“Hyung, no offence, I’m not going anywhere with a hungry vampire. I don’t even know if you’re going to eat my prey”

“Listen to you, your prey?” Doyoung scoffs, disbelieving.

Haechan shrugs: “What, I don’t eat them, but that’s still what they are” he protests, and with good reason, at least technically.

Doyoung doesn’t engage him any further, but catches the wary expression on Taeyong’s face. Yuta and Jaehyun don’t seem to share the same reserve about their newly predator nature, though. He wonders why Taeyong seems to find it so difficult to do the same. After all, it’s still just a game, isn’t it? The blood Jaehyun will swallow won’t be real blood. Or, it might look like, it might be real, in this world. But. If he goes too far. If Taeyong takes too much from one of his… victims? Preys? From one of the people he will feed from. That won’t make him a killer.

Right?

The uneasiness Doyoung reads in his best friend’s eyes doesn’t help though, and he can’t stop doubting, wondering.

In the meantime, Haechan has disappeared and quickly come back once again. He carries a bag much smaller than the big bundles he brought back from his previous task, and when he opens it they can smell the delicious scents of freshly baked buns. Doyoung doesn’t know if it’s them being too hungry to care, or if really these are the best tasting buns he’s ever smelt and eaten.

“Taeyong hyung, you were saying the lake is under the prisons?” Yuta asks, midchew.

Taeyong nods, swallowing his own bite of bready food. He doesn’t seem to be doubting his own biology anymore and eats with gusto. Next to him Jaehyun is doing the same, after the first hesitant bites. Doyoung figures that, either that food is going to come back up to the outer world in the next future, or that means Jaehyun doesn’t need to eat only blood.

“Well, we’ve better go then” Johnny decides, swallowing the last of his bun and wiping his hands on his pants: “I don’t really want to drag this much longer”

They have to wait that all of them are done with their chewing, not really wanting to approach such a central and frequented building like the one they will find the prisons in and be caught eating or anyway attracting any attention. The capes they are wearing help a lot, and they can easily pass as a group of guards headed to the prisons on duty.

The main entrance is wide. There are sentries, obviously, and torches to the walls every few meters, casting light in the corridors otherwise black. The night has fallen by now, and wherever the light of the torches doesn’t reach, everything is in the deepest darkness. It feels unsettling at first, Doyoung thinks, to walk in a building with no means to shed additional light just by flipping on a switch.

They follow the emptiest corridors to regroup in a safe spot.

“I smell blood” Yuta announces when they do: “that way”

“Me too. It must be the right way” Jaehyun adds.

“What, why? what if it’s the torture chamber?” Doyoung replies.

“Usually those were very close to the cells, hyung” Mark points out: "and if I am correct, that way leads downwards, anyway. And we know the lake is under the prisons”

“Hyung?” Haechan asks, careful and alarmed, eyes trained on Jaehyun’s face.

Doyoug follows Haechan’s eyes and finds Jaehyun very focused, his nose twitching, his fangs peaking out from under his upper lip: “Jaehyunnie? What are you doing?”

“Easy, cute vampire hyung, you’ve already eaten your bread food, no need to follow blood trail” Jungwoo says in a childish voice meant to sooth and amuse them, but actually sounding just as alarmed as Haechan was.

Jaehyun’s eyes have dilated and he seems really invested in sniffing whatever scent he’s caught.

“Mmm… sorry, but… this smells really good” Jaehyun answers, his voice dreamy and languid.

“Jaeyhunnie, no” Taeyong sternly chides.

Jaehyun closes his eyes with a longing expression and turns pleadingly at their leader: “But, hyung… it smells so good…”

“You’ll get your blood, Jaehyun. Don’t waste your time now. Also, don’t you smell it? This blood is stale. Nobody is dripping fresh blood now. Surely you’d rather get your first taste of it from a living, pulsating neck, not licking up some crusty stones, right?”

Jaehyun actually makes a face at Yuta’s words and laughs quietly: “Yeah, you’re right hyung” he agrees, reverting to full control.

“I think we have to go this way” Johnny interrupts them, his eyes shining: “I can’t explain but… I feel water? Like I was feeling it at the cliff”

“You’re right, you can’t explain it” Haechan comments.

“No, but, really? I think I can sort of feel the fire of the torches too” Mark declares.

“…Okay. That doesn’t sound creepy at all”

“It doesn’t sound any creepier than you putting a spell on a group of poor nuns” Mark protests, frowning at Haechan.

“Stop making it sound like I’ve seduced them or led into temptation! I’m not the devil, you know? Technically, that’s either Jaehyun hyung or Taeyong hyung”

Taeyong snorts loudly, Jaehyun actually smirk in a very smug way.

“Let’s go” Johnny says, ignoring them all and suddenly taking the lead of their group.

They follow him through corridors getting more and more narrow, having to get rid of gates more than once. Yuta finds out that he’s got claws too, paired with the fangs, and those are apparently very effective when you’re picking a lock. That, or he simply pulls the entire gate until it slides off its hinges.

“After you” he comments placidly, depositing one of the aforementioned gates on the wall beside them.

“Look, guys! Johnny hyung, you were right” Taeil announces, from the spot he’s run in front of them.

They end up at the top of a long set of stony stairs, the last few steps actually leading directly to the crystal-clear water of a small lake. It’s too big for a pond but it must be the sorriest excuse for a lake, Doyoung thinks. At least in terms of dimensions. The water is very pretty though, and definitely balances that out.

“The water looks almost green” Yuta comments.

“Mmm. Like, aqua” Jungwoo agrees.

“Is it because it’s an enchanted lake?” Mark asks.

Johnny shrugs: “Dunno. But there is the key” he says, stretching his arm out and pointing in direction of a very shiny, golden key, lying at the very bottom of the pond-lake.

“Yeah… and the bones there must have been the poor suckers who’ve tried to reach it before us” Taeyong comments, curling his upper lip in disgust and nodding towards a rather high pile of bones, and skulls on the opposite side of the room.

“Better than the floating corpse Doyoungie prophesized” Johnny muses, smiling tersely.

He undoes with quick fingers the lacing of his coat and both the shirts his wearing, upper and inner layers. Haechan extends his arms out and takes every items in custody. Jungwoo points out that Johnny might want to swim without his boots too, but Johnny decides to keep them.

“We don’t even know if someone is coming. What if I don’t have the time to wear them once I’m out? I’d rather not be on the run barefoot” he reasons.

That also makes sense. He combs his hair out of his eyes and approaches the border of the enchanted lake, casting a prudent look at the water.

“Hyung, be careful” Mark says, his voice suddenly quiet and worried.

“Try to make a sign if you feel weird. Any sign. We’ll try to get you out” Taeyong promises.

“Yeah? And how? You’d have to dive in anyway. No, Yong, none of you will get in there. Promise you won’t. This is my trial after all. Taeil hyung had to do worse than this. Or, at least… I guess”

“Still, be careful” Jaehyun insists.

“You don’t know, it might be more tricky than it looks” Taeil adds, watching Johnny with worried eyes.

“I’m going to be fine, guys. Just wait for me” Johnny promises, soothing.

He doesn’t waste much time after that, diving straight into the lake with a quiet and athletic move. The members watch him swim towards the bottom of the pond, seemingly completely unaffected by the enchanted water. He gets the key, turns and waves at them.

Doyoung snorts.

“Shut up and come back up, hurry!” Taeyong replies, waving back.

Johnny nods and pushes upwards, using the bed of the lake as a means to propel himself towards the surface.

When he breaks the top of the lake he takes a long gulp of air, floating placidly and pushing his hair back, away from his eyes. He doesn’t even have to kick to keep himself up, only barely moves his feet.

“Seriously, that’s it?” he asks incredulously.

“Say that once you’re out!” Haechan chides him, stomping with his foot.

Johnny chuckles and reaches the border with only a few strong strokes. He hauls himself out of the water with no help needed, refusing Yuta and Jaehyun’s hands. He gets up and uses the external side of his own coat to dries his hair and torso quickly, then proceeds to wear all the layers he’s removed.

“You’re going to get sick if you spend the night in wet clothes” Taeyong comments, lips a thin line: “you should have stripped more”

“Trying to get me out of my clothes, Yong? I thought you were supposed to have more charm than that” Johnny replies, smug and confident.

He smirks and makes Taeyong blush impossibly red.

“What! No! That’s… That’s not what I’m saying!” Taeyong protests.

Johnny smiles in a sort of apologetic way, and shows him the fabric of his pants, pinching it between two fingers.

“Watch” he commands.

And under Taeyong’s and everyone else’s surprised stare, the fabric goes back to dry.

“Cool” Mark laughs: “I wonder if I could do the same!”

“I’m sure” Johnny answers with a smile.

“Okay, great. That’s done. What should we do now?” Taeyong asks, turning to Doyoung with frantic eyes, like he can’t wait to get out of the place, or maybe just forget as fast as possible the embarrassing situation.

Doyoung smirks teasingly but takes the booklet, turning pages after pages. He frowns as he does so, remembering that, because of the order they’re following, the next trial is supposed to be Taeyong’s.

And he doesn’t know what he will have to do, but, Doyoung has a feeling Johnny shouldn’t have teased the incubus right before his trial.

Call it a hunch. One of those normal Doyoung would get, or seer Doyoung does, that doesn’t matter.

“This was too easy” Yuta comments, meeting Doyoung’s eyes for a brief moment.

Doyoung agrees.

“Roll the dices, Doyoung” Taeil says, tapping on Doyoung’s arm.

Doyoung gets them out of the pocket in his pants that he’s stashed them in, the only one where he hopes they won’t slip out, and rolls them.

The number they make is determinant in how they will make it out, he thinks.

“Two? Only Two?” Haechan comments, almost disappointed.

“Well, if two is enough to get us out of here, I’m not complaining” Johnny replies.

“We were at slot eight, right? So now we should go to ten?” Jaehyun asks.

Doyoung nods, and is about to vocalize his answer, when he realizes something is missing.

Namely, the feeling he’s by now almost grown accustomed to, the sensation of disappearing somewhere and reappearing somewhere else.

That’s not happening.

So whatever slot ten involves, it’s not going to get them out of there.

And it will involve Taeyong.

He moves around his worried eyes until he find Taeyong, his face an unreadable mask. Only the way his jaw his clenching and unclenching tells Doyoung how nervous the elder feels.

He opens his mouth, about to tell the rest of his members his freshly made discovery – that they have to find their own way out of the prisons, when, all of a sudden.

Still no disappearing, still no fainting, nothing.

Only a loud noise coming from the top of the stairs, the sound of too many voices, too many stomping boots, too many guards, in a hurry, headed down to the lake.

“Oh shit” Doyoung mutters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo... Incredibly long chapter, I know, I hope it's not too long. Next one up is Taeyong 😉

**Author's Note:**

> Okay mob, let's try this one, I've already written down all the plot down to the small details so unless something major happens and I lose inspiration (my Muse being... No you know what, I'm going to let you guess XD) I should be able to make it. 
> 
> You will have a fantasy creature x each member and, if things go according to plan, you should find out who's what already in chapter 2. 
> 
> I'll try to keep as little time as possible between posting each chapter but remember, I've got a life too, outside fanfics (unfortunately, yes. We all know we would live better if we could live only writing this stuff).
> 
> Please feel free to leave a comment or kudos and let me know what you liked or didn't!


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